Today In What Awesome Thing Has Shohei Ohtani Done - He Gave Away His $150,000 Prize For Competing In The Home Run Derby To Different Angels Employees
How can you not like Shohei Ohtan? This guy is a real life superhero. Forget all the stuff he does on the field, forget him doing things we haven't seen since 1920, forget him doing things we pretend to do in video games, this is the stuff that makes him awesome. Ohtani was given $150,000 for appearing in the Home Run Derby this week but decided to give it away as a thank you to 30 Angels workers for their help and work during the season. What a move.
Shohei Ohtani didn’t win the Home Run Derby, but he still made a handful of Angels employees winners for his efforts.
Ohtani received $150,000 for participating in the Derby, but he distributed that to around 30 Angels support staffers to thank them for their work, sources said. Ohtani distributed checks on Friday to trainers, clubhouse workers and media relations staffers.
Ohtani apparently decided that he was going to use the money in this way no matter what the outcome was. The Derby winner received $1 million, while the runner-up received $500,000.
Before you shit on him for losing in the first round, lets just chill. He was going to give it all away to Angels workers whether he lost or won the million, what an awesome gesture. Giving away $150,000 is an insanely generous gesture, I don't care how much you have in the bank. It's not a move for publicity either, this was probably supposed to be a story that never got out. Seems like he's a great guy doing something nice for others. And it's not like he's sitting on a Fernando Tatis Jr. $340 million contract either, his current deal is a 2-year $8.5 million deal. Sure he's going to get a fat paycheck soon but I'm sure he would have enjoyed that extra 150K. Instead he found 30 other people who needed it more and decided to help out. He really is an Angel, isn't he? And there are people bitching that he could have donated the money to a charity or done something like that with the money. Give me a break. Can't tell another person how to spend their cash.
He's an awesome player who seems like he's a much better person. Moves like this is how you solidify yourself as the face of baseball. Doing it all on the field, plus acts of kindness like this. Gotta wonder how Stephen A feels about this though. Such a cool gesture by Shohei. Hard not to love a guy who plays like him and does stuff like this off the field.