Kirk Herbstreit: ‘No one cared’ about Shohei Ohtani when he was in Anaheim

Kirk Herbstreit has devoted so much time to college football and the NFL in recent years that he thinks we all just found out about Shohei Ohtani.

Prime Video featured the Miami Dolphins and Baltimore Ravens this week on Thursday Night Football. And the Dolphins were so bad that Herbstreit and Al Michaels opted to talk about baseball. During the broadcast, they questioned what would be the NFL equivalent of Ohtani’s historic three-homer, 10-strikeout performance in the NLCS, with Michaels believing a player would need to throw for five touchdowns while snagging three picks on defense.

The conversation further cemented how amazing Ohtani has been for baseball, prompting Herbstreit to question whether the $700 million superstar is receiving his due.

“He was over there eight years at Anaheim, no one cared! No one talked about him!” Kirk Herbstreit on Shohei Ohtani pic.twitter.com/IYW0WN3Myn

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 31, 2025

“Do you think Ohtani is getting the appreciation that he deserves?” Herbstreit asked, to which Michaels claimed he “finally” is.

“He was over there eight years at Anaheim, no one cared!” Herbstreit continued. “No one talked about him! You get that Dodger uniform on him, everybody pays attention.”

“Tell me about it, I live out there,” Michaels added before noting Ohtani is now an “international celebrity.”

Playing in his second consecutive World Series, it’s safe to say Ohtani’s appeal and fame has grown with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but let’s not act like he wasn’t already a superstar before moving 30 miles north from Anaheim. Ohtani won two MVP awards with the Angels; he wasn’t some unknown before going to the Dodgers.

From April to September, every baseball fan cared about Ohtani. The problem, however, was that no one cared about Ohtani in October, because despite being paired with Mike Trout, the Angels never made the playoffs with the historic duo.

The Angels didn’t maximize Ohtani’s potential on or off the field. They never built a winner around him, and they failed at using Ohtani to become more of a global brand the way the Dodgers already have. But even if fans weren’t interested in the Angels, they were always interested in Ohtani and the unicorn that he is.

Where the Angels may have failed in maximizing Ohtani’s celebrity, MLB appears to be doing something right. Because Major League Baseball becoming a topic during an NFL broadcast used to be about as rare as a player hitting three homers and striking out 10 batters in the same game.