Yakyu shonen — you may not know the words but you know the type. He’s Roy Hobbs, battling back from a gunshot wound to rip the cover off the ball. He’s Henry Skrimshander, perfecting the art of fielding and going from Westish College to the first round of the draft. He’s Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez, taking the sandlot games just a bit more seriously than anyone else.
The “yakyu shonen,” literally translated to “baseball boy,” has long existed as a fictional prodigy, who combines outsized talent with a desire to live, breath, and sometimes die for baseball. But with Shohei Ohtani already dominating the major leagues this year, the myth of the yakyu shonen has left the realms of Hollywood fantasy for Anaheim’s reality.