Baseball may be America's pastime, but in recent years, it has lost some of its cultural cache as the NFL and NBA grow in popularity.
The NFL owns an entire day (Sundays), and the Super Bowl is basically a national holiday at this point. The NBA has built its brand around its exciting, marketable superstars and its never-ceasing drama. Even European soccer has grown in popularity in the United States in recent years.
But Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani is hoping to return the sport to its glory days, when players like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were larger-than-life, almost mythological heroes in the American zeitgeist.