The big news in Japan on Friday was not really about Japan but about Shohei Ohtani, whose accidental success is the stuff of legend. Ohtani is a player with tremendous talent, who is being celebrated by a system as a success story, despite the fact that he became a success because he slipped through the cracks of that same system that would have defined him as something smaller.

The AL MVP award was of course Ohtani’s second as a major leaguer, the other coming when he got all but one first-place vote in 2016.

Also on Friday, we had the Japan Series managers meeting. This is where ostensibly the managers settle questions about ground rules and decide whether or not they will announce their starting pitchers or even adopt the DH in the home park of the non-DH Central League team.