This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The obvious choices for No. 73: = Dennis Rodman: Los Angeles Lakers = Ron Yary: Los Angeles Rams
The not-so obvious choices for No. 73: = Charlie Cowan: Los Angeles Rams = Tyler Toffoli: Los Angeles Kings = George Stanich: UCLA basketball
The most interesting story for No. 73: Dennis Rodman: Los Angeles Lakers forward (1999) Southern California map pinpoints: Newport Beach; Long Beach; Inglewood (Forum)
For 50 days spanning 23 games between February 23 and April 15, 1999, Dennis “The Menace” Rodman was a Laker. The time felt much longer and more painful.
A month after the Chicago Bulls released him, and showing up the day after the Lakers fired Del Harris as their coach and handed the job to Bill Bertka, there was a perfect amount of turmoil for Rodman to come on board.
Aside from tardiness and unpredictability, Rodman’s hair was a daily guessing game as well — dyed all shades of yellow sprinkled with black dots in it, accentuating his tattoos and piercings. Straight from the heart through his head.
Fast forward to Tax Day ’99, after he had taxed everyone’s patience. He was finally audited a month after Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke jerked his knee and told the Lakers they had to cut him loose “before he returns from spring break.”
The whole experience was long enough to get him a cover story in Sports Illustrated. Someone even had enough material to put together his “10 best plays” highlight reel.
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 19:
= Jim Gilliam : Los Angeles Dodgers = Butch Goring: Los Angeles Kings = Fred Lynn: California Angels = Jim Fox: Los Angeles Kings
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 19: = Mike Gillespie: USC baseball = Dennis Dummit, UCLA football = Larry Robinson: Los Angeles Kings
The most interesting story for No. 19: Louis Lapp: El Segundo Little League pitcher/first baseman (2023) Southern California map pinpoints: El Segundo
El Segundo Little Leaguer Louis Lappe (19) leaps onto home plate after hitting a solo home run off Needville, Texas’ DJ Jablonski during the first inning of their U.S. tournament game at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pa. ,on Monday, Aug. 21, 2021. Lappe would hit another homer to end the Little League World Series six days later against Curacoa– with a similar celebration at home plate. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Louis Lappe grew up in an era of Southern California sports where a kid could crack open a can of Liquid Death, not just as way not to re-hydrate, but look bad ass doing it.
Yet nothing was more cool to his friends than what he pulled off in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, during a summer vacation that focused in winning game after game in the Little League World Series tournament.
At 6-foot-1 and 153 pounds, Lappe already stood head-and-shoulders above most of his El Segundo All Star teammates. The 12-year-old could make level eye contact with the team’s 53-year-old volunteer manager, Danny Boehle.
In one magical moment, No. 19 appeared to leap maybe 19 feet or more in the air before taking a title home with him.
On a Sunday afternoon before a national TV audience, many of whom were crammed into local restaurants in Southern California to see what might happen, Lappe took his victory lap around the bases capped off by jumping high in the air and landing on home plate at Howard J. Lamade Stadium to punctuate a game-winning home run in the 2021 Little League World Series championship game.
A 6-5 victory happened after, just an inning earlier, the contest was tied by a grand-slam gut punch delivered by the kids from Willemstad, Curacao, a team from a small island off the coast of Venezuela home to just 150,000 residents. Instead, Curacao endured its second straight title loss and third in previous last four tournaments.
Lappe’s home run was the first and only Willemstad allowed in its six World Series games.
“I was just looking for a good pitch,” Lappe told ABC after his Series-leading fifth home run in seven games. “My mentality was just get the next guy up and if we kept doing that, we would have won either way, but I’ll take the homer. When that pitch came, even before I hit it, I was like, ‘Oh!’ I was so excited and happy. When I got around to home plate, I made sure to touch it.”
Lappe’s teammates had already nicknamed him “The Natural.” Just 24 hours earlier, in the U.S. title game, Lappe hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning and struck out 10 batters in 5 1/3 innings on the mound for a 6-1 triumph against Needville, Texas. It was the fourth day in a row El Segundo won an elimination game — the same Needville sent it into the consolation bracket earlier in the week.
Lappe nearly didn’t show up for his final year of Little League eligibility. He played for a few years before, but sat out the season at age 11, deciding instead to focus on soccer, basketball and another travel baseball team. Lappe eventually asked Boehle if he would be OK to rejoin the program.
Boehle said he was fully on board – enough to want to coach the team himself.
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 00:
= Benoit Benjamin: Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers = Brian Wilson: Los Angeles Dodgers = Kevin Duckworth: Los Angeles Clippers
The most interesting story for No. 00:
Benoit Benjamin:Los Angeles Clippers center (1985-86 to 1990-91); Los Angeles Lakers center (1992-93) Southern California map pinpoints: Los Angeles (Sports Arena); Inglewood (Forum)
Double-digit zero, and Benoit Benjamin, live together in imperfect alliterative NBA harmony. And a good dose of infamy.
The player, and the number, have become a consequential representation of Los Angeles Clippers’ existence. It’s the visual evidence that Donald T. Sterling’s decision to escape the shackles of San Diego to seek even more fame and fortune in the area already dominated by the Los Angeles Lakers has seemed like a suicide mission from the day the Clipper ship, which originally left its dock in Buffalo, decided to find another new port of entry.
Both the franchise in general, and Benjamin in particular, seem to bank on the idea one can have a decent amount of talent and just show up to the party expecting to be embraced by a major global metropolitan city that has already celebrated years of success with another transplanted dance partner from Minnesota.
It just doesn’t work that way. It lacks a certain maturity for the sophistication of a basketball-knowledgeable L.A., in the eyes of critics and even passive observers. Their struggles and eventual failures were too predictable for anyone with forward thinking and a knowledge of hoops history.
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 60: = Hardiman Cureton: UCLA football = Clay Matthews Jr.: USC football = Dennis Harrah: Los Angeles Rams
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 60: = Chin-Lung Hu: Los Angeles Dodgers = Andrew Toles: Los Angeles Dodgers
The most interesting story for No. 60: Andrew Toles: Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder (2016 to 2018) Southern California map pinpoints: Dodger Stadium
Years after his last MLB game, without much hope that he’ll ever play again, Andrew Toles remains more than just in the Dodgers’ hearts and minds. He has what appears to be a contract that keeps him connected with them.
Every year since 2019, the Dodgers, without much attention, let it be known they have retained the outfielder and lead-off hitter as a contracted employee. Without pay. On the restricted list. It was reported that renewed that deal again in March, 2024.
The media makes it appear this happens to guarantee Toles’ health insurance as he continues to deal with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. There’s more to it. It’s there as well to give Toles comfort in that, should he find a way to live with this condition, he will have the psychological approach to this that the team has kept him close to its heart, and he’s still in the process of making a comeback.
If the team doesn’t renew the agreement, there is fear Toles may discover as much go back down a dark hole.
This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 17:
= Shohei Ohtani: Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers = Bill Kilmer: UCLA football = Phillip Rivers: Los Angeles Chargers = Jari Kurri: Los Angeles Kings and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 17:
= Puka Nacua: Los Angeles Rams = Carl Erskine: Los Angeles Dodgers = Jeremy Lin: Los Angeles Lakers
The most interesting story for No. 17: Shohei Ohtani: Los Angeles Angels pitcher/designated hitter/outfielder (2018 to 2023); Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher/designated hitter (2024 to present) Southern California map pinpoints: Anaheim, Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium)
Shohei Ohtani’s supernatural existence in a Major League Baseball uniform might be best captured in an English-created adjective you won’t find in any global dictionary. Yet.
It’s Ohtanic.
Create the Japanese character equivalent to this, and perhaps it’s a new branding opportunity.
In a June 2025 Substack post, Doug Glanville, the former MLB player-turned-media analyst, landed on that as the most appropriate way to summarize what he had analyzed of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher/hitter to that point in time.
“I landed on ‘Ohtanic’ … ‘When Shohei Ohtani does something that only Shohei Ohtani can do.’ ” Glanville explained. “Circular? Yes. True? Also yes. … He exists in this strange stasis. Maybe like the Last Action Hero or Batman — super, but without superpowers. Ohtani does not need smoke and mirrors. He is right there, in the open. And that is the point. …
“He embodies a kind of limitless greatness, rooted in craft, powered by discipline, and entirely human. And still, that does not quite capture the essence of who he is and what he does.”
Glanville wrote that nearly four years after Ohtani made the AL All-Star team, both as a hitter and pitcher, batting leadoff as the DH and starting on the mound, getting the first outs, and credited with the win as a member of the Los Angeles Angels.
“Ohtanic” was also generated nine months after Ohtani had what some called “one of the greatest performances in MLB history.” Going 6-for-6 with three homers, 10 RBIs and two stolen bases, reaching 50 homers for the season as well as 50 stolen bases, which clinched the NL West Division for the Dodgers as they would win a World Series. That also clinched Ohtani’s first NL MVP Award to go with the two he had previously in the AL.
At that moment, Joe Posnanski wrote on Sept. 20, ’24: Did Shohei Ohtani just have the greatest game in baseball history? … Let’s instead call it the most amazing game in baseball history. Let’s instead call Ohtani the most amazing player in baseball history. All the great players in baseball history, Ruth and Mays and Aaron and Bonds and Gehrig and Clemente and Pujols and Bench and Ichiro and Charleston and Mantle and Morgan and Griffey and Gibson and Trout and on and on… and we’ve never seen anyone like Shohei Ohtani.
Shohei Ohtani just had one of the greatest performances in MLB history:
6-for-6 3 Home runs 2 Doubles 1 Single 10 Runs Batted In 4 Runs Scored 2 Stolen Bases
He became the first player in MLB history to reach the 50/50 (and now 51/51) club.
Then came Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium, on Oct. 16, 2025, four months after Glanville’s dictionary suggestion.
Ohtani, the starting pitcher, went into the seventh inning before coming out after allowing the first two batters to reach. He was credited for throwing six shutout innings (because the relievers didn’t allow anyone to score), striking out 10.
Ohtani, the DH batting leadoff, hit solo homers in the first, fourth and seventh innings, off three different pitchers, including one that went over the right-field pavilion roof listed at 469 feet, one of the greatest hit in the stadium’s history (and not even the longest he ever hit). His homer in the first gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. His homer in the fourth gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead. His homer in the seventh gave the Dodgers a 5-0 lead, that he aimed to continue before he was pulled after 100 pitches (66 strikes).
Sportswriters, historians and pop culture hyperbolists squeezed any digital thesaurus to see what was left to use for someone already referred to as “The Unicorn” or “GOAT of MLB history.”
The Washington Post’s Chelea James: “This was Beethoven at a piano. This was Shakespeare with a quill. This was Michael Jordan in the Finals. This was Tiger Woods in Sunday red. This was too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of every debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game … Friday night, (he) was Mona Lisa.”
New Yorker writer Louisa Thomas checked in with: “It was the greatest performance by the greatest player in history.”
This one in The Atlantic, “A Truly Awesome Performance,” had a lede by Peter Wehner that read: “On Friday night at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, fans witnessed perhaps the greatest game by a player in the history of baseball, and one of the handful of greatest individual performances in any sport ever. But Shohei Ohtani’s performance shouldn’t be of interest just to sports fans. His triumph offers all of us a ray of hope at a troubled time.”
The piece ended: “So enjoy Shohei Ohtani while you can. He embodies athletic excellence, which will bring you joy, and moral excellence, which will bring you hope. We could benefit from some of both these days.”
Michael Weinreb, on his “Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture,” wasn’t convinced so much in: “Ohtani Is a Hero for the AI Age.”
While Ohtani had perhaps the most remarkable playoff performance by a single athlete in the history of baseball, and “I recognize it is too soon to process how these accomplishments might wind up being filtered through the lens of history. … (But) then I began to wonder if Ohtani’s performance will wind up meaning much of anything at all outside of baseball itself. And I wondered if — through no real fault of his own — Shohei Ohtani could wind up becoming the avatar of an empty cultural age. … He is everything and he is nothing. And you might argue, in an era where everyday life in America feels increasingly detached from reality, he is the quintessential hero of our age.”
“The Ascension, the Ascension, the Ascension—he’s always going on about the Ascension,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, admitting he was baffled by Ohtani tracing an ancient symbol on his forehead and sprinkling rosin in a spiral over his cleats. “I asked him what it meant, and he just smiled. Then Will said, ‘The hour grows near when all will know. The Ascension stirs beneath the red soil.’ It made me really uncomfortable.”
Then came in November and December of 2025: A fourth career unanimous MVP Award, The Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year Award for the fourth time (in company with Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods and LeBron James; the only MLB player to win this more than once was Sandy Koufax in ’63 and ’65), his third consecutive Hank Aaron Award as the top hitter in the league, his fourth Silver Slugger and his fifth straight Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter award. And he’s included in the New York Times’ list of the “67 Most Stylish People of 2025,” for turning “a hand gesture originally featured in a Japanese cosmetics commercial into something of a craze” as he ran around the bases after a homer. (As long as he wasn’t flashing “6, 7” to the crowd).
Christmas came early for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023. The Los Angeles Angels were left with nothing more than a lump of … coal-ish something or other.
Not only did Shohei Ohtani come gift-wrapped, courtesy of the Angels, but a 10-year, $700 million deal (with much of it craftily deferred) made it the most expensive gesture and pivotal moment in Southern California professional baseball. It showed that there was a distinct business intersection of sports and entertainment.
It morphed into full-on, no shame, global Sho-business.
There had been welcome-to-L.A./SoCal galas in the past for Wayne Gretzky, LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, David Beckham and Albert Pujols. A welcome back for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Same for the Los Angeles Rams.
Shohei Ohtani’s re-entering the SoCal galaxy as a re-imagined global icon raised the bar spectacularly to heights not seen before.
A press conference in the afternoon at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 14, 2023 made sure it was prime-time morning viewing in Japan the next day. It came six years after he already dazzled Orange County agreeing to play for Los Angeles’ Angels.
Even before then, the Southern California media market knew what it was seeing.
A 2017 piece on CBS’ “60 Minutes” explained to all of the U.S. what his profound achievements already were in Japan by age 22. Earlier that fall, Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times went to Japan as well to write about how “Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani could be double threat in big leagues.”
The story started: “SAPPORO, Japan — The best player on the baseball team pitches and bats fourth. Not on a Little League team. Not on a high school team. On a professional team that plays at this country’s highest level. Shohei Ohtani has the kind of extraordinary talent that could change the sport. He’s done it here, and he soon could do it in the major leagues, all the while maintaining the innocence of a boy playing a kids’ game despite the scrutiny and pressure he faces as Japan’s most-popular athlete.”
Now at Dodger Stadium, Ohtani said through then-interpreter Ippei Mizuhara: “I am very humbled and happy to see all of you guys here … I was told that it was only media today, so I was not expecting this.”
Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis interjected: “It actually is only media.”
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