How Kobe Bryant is missed. He would still be in the sports world today, analyzing the NBA of course, and probably other sports such as baseball, as he was often seen wearing the jersey of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Almost six years after his tragic death, the Lakers legend is back in the spotlight and now with Shohei Ohtani, a pitcher and hitter who is said to have joined the Florida team thanks to ‘Black Mamba‘.
Shohei Ohtani led the Los Angeles Dodgers back to the World Series with a historic performance on the mound and at the plate. The Japanese star hit three huge home runs and pitched into the seventh inning allowing only two hits, and the Dodgers swept Milwaukee in the National League Championship Series with a 5-1 victory in Game 4 on Friday, October 17.
Do you remember the ‘secret’ Kobe Bryant video that convinced Ohtani to go to the Dodgers?
Shohei Ohtani, one of the most important stars in Major League Baseball today, joined the Dodgers in free agency in 2023. With a $700 million contract, the Japanese became the highest-paid player in MLB history at the time. Although not all the details of the negotiations were known, a key element was recently revealed that convinced the superstar to sign with the Californians.
In a report by ESPN journalist Jeff Passan, Shohei Ohtani had a meeting with the Dodgers’ front office, in which he was presented with a video of Kobe Bryant in which he talked about the organization and how the team is run to be a franchise of excellence in MLB. “That was one of the highlights of the whole meeting,” Ohtani said.
The video, recorded in 2017 as a favor to the Dodgers by Kobe Bryant before his tragic death, was a vital piece in convincing Shohei Ohtani to sign with the Californians from free agency. The legendary Lakers player was a very important part of the decision to sign for the Japanese player, as he himself acknowledged in an interview with ESPN.
How did Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant die?
On January 26, 2020, the sporting world was shocked by tragic news. The Sikorsky S-76 helicopter in which Kobe Bryant was traveling crashed in the city of Calabasas, near Los Angeles. In the tragic event, not only Kobe lost his life. His 13-year-old daughter Gianna Maria was traveling with her father to play a basketball game representing the Mamba Academy, founded by the Lakers legend
Seven other people also died in the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter. Bryant used to travel in this means of transport to avoid the chaotic traffic of Los Angeles. The distance between Orange County, where the helicopter took off, and Thousands Oaks (the destination) was about 124 kilometers, but it could not be completed because 39 minutes after takeoff, the aircraft crashed into a hill and caught fire.
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