“Decoy Saves Opening Day”
The author: Shohei Ohtani and Michael Blank
The illustrator: Fanny Liem
The details: HarperCollins, 32 pages, $21.99, released Feb. 3, ’26
The links: The publisher and Bookshop.org
“Shohei Ohtani: A Little Golden Book Biography”
The author: Nicole de las Heras
The illustrator: Toshiki Nakamura
The details: Little Golden Book Biographies/Penguin/Random House, 24 pages, $5.99; released March 3, ’26
The links: The publisher and at Bookstore.org
A review in 90 feet or less:
An AI overview collection of words and symbols generated from a search engine ask specifically about “Shohei Ohtani insane endorsement income” quickly will engineer this kind of answer-nugget:
“Shohei Ohtani is projected to earn an estimated $125 million in endorsement income for 2026, with nearly 20 global brand partners, making him the highest-paid athlete in the world from endorsements alone, according to Sportico data via Boardroom. This follows an estimated $100 million in marketing revenue earned during 2025, on top of a $2 million salary with the Dodgers — a threshold only previously reached by legends like Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, and Stephen Curry”
We believe this to be true, because the AI primary source for that information seems to spitting out an Instragram post made by MLB on Fox and Fox Sports. Those numbers had been regurgitated many times over by other media platforms, including the Los Angeles Times, when, in the headline “Why $100 million in endorsements says Shohei Ohtani is the global face of sport,” the writer went on to deduce: “In Ohtani, whose face appears on everything from airplanes to skin care products, baseball at long last has its Michael Jordan: the superstar that has transcended sports and ascended to the status of global pop culture icon.”
He can hit. He can pitch.
He can write a book. Not one of those “as told to” mass-market, ghost-written, give-us-the-gossip type of sordid tale.
No new dirt here on Ippei here. It’s about a different dog.
Ohtani’s handlers must be painfully aware there is no money to be made in the book publishing business.
Just ask writers such as Bill Plunkett, who did the 2025 “L.A. Story: Shohei Ohtani, The Los Angeles Dodges and a Season for the Ages” or Jeff Fletcher, who fashioned an update of his 2022 “Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played.” All their deadline work dancing around their regular job of covering the Dodgers and Angels didn’t generate royalties that will allow them to lead a more regal suburban existence.
Ohtani’s co-author, Michael Blank, could even clue him in. Blanks is a venture capitalist who has been with Creative Artists Agency for 15 years.
Continue reading “Day 1 of 2026 baseball book reviews: Sho-ing off for the kids”
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