The club, made up of talented high school students from across the Commonwealth, was holding a meeting ahead of the opening game of the 2012 World Under-18 Baseball Championship against Team Japan. Head coach Greg Hamilton, a serious veteran of Canadian baseball, walked into the room. He looked at the children he had helped round up, most of whom had never been this far from home. A handful, like Josh Naylor, Cal Quantrill and Jacob Robson, would play in the majors. Others would forge careers in the minor leagues. Some chose other paths.
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But everyone remembers the rest of that day. It all started with a scouting report from Hamilton that was half warning, half pep talk.
“The guy on the mound in Japan is the best 18-year-old pitcher in the world.” ” the typically no-nonsense, non-hyperbolic captain told his players, according to Robson. “And he’s also the best 18-year-old batsman in the world.”
Of course, he was referring to Shohei Ohtani.
Although, technically speaking, Ohtani’s name didn’t have an English H yet. During the 2012 BWC U 18, both his Samurai Japan uniform and official scores spelled that now unmistakable surname “Otani.”
Things are a little different now. Today, the 31-year-old is a global superstar, a national hero and the captain of Japan’s quest to capture back-to-back World Baseball Classic titles. Three years ago, in his first WBC appearance, Ohtani propelled his club to glory with an unprecedented two-way performance. He won the tournament MVP award by going 10-for-23 at the plate with 10 walks and five extra-base hits. He also made two brilliant starts, as well as an unforgettable and dramatic relief appearance to close out the championship game against then-teammate Mike Trout.
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With the 2026 tournament in full swing and Samurai Japan set to play Venezuela in the quarterfinals on Saturday night, the focus is once again on Ohtani.
But while his international career has become the stuff of legend, it began with a disappointing afternoon in front of a reported attendance of just 125 people. In his first ever appearance for Team Japan, Ohtani, already quite a household name in his homeland, was outplayed by an annoying squad of Canadians who didn’t know who he was until Greg Hamilton told them.
“(Hamilton) went on to say that he didn’t say it to scare us,” Robson explained. “He was just trying to prepare us, like, ‘Hey, he throws really hard. He knows what he’s doing.’ Everyone’s been on him since he was a kid. He’s a prodigy.”
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He may have been a prodigy, but Ohtani’s final line of pitching that day was disappointing: 3 1/3 innings, 3 hits, 3 earned runs, 4 walks, 4 strikeouts. At the plate, he went 1-for-3 with an intentional walk and a laser-beam double-play lineout that nearly decapitated Canadian pitcher Ryan Kellogg.
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Coincidentally, although a handful of MLB evaluators attended, it was a significantly smaller group than might have been expected. That’s because a highly touted Korean left-hander named Hyun-Jin Ryu, who would move to MLB that winter, was pitching the same day for the Hanwha Eagles. And so, several scouts who would have otherwise seen Ohtani were outside watching Ryu.
But even though Ohtani was knocked down and knocked out early, opposing hitters were impressed by his material.
“I get in the box and he’s just pumping heat, 94, 95,” recalled shortstop Daniel Piñero, who won a College World Series with the University of Virginia. “At that time, no one was throwing that hard, especially high schoolers. And we also came from Canada, where it was 85, 86. This long, lanky kid comes on the mound, and he’s just pumping heat, with nasty moves too, and we were like, ‘Okay, this kid is disgusting.'”
That overwhelming arsenal left Canada bewildered at first, and Ohtani caused some very, very unpleasant swings along the way. He struck out three in the second inning, including Naylor, the future All-Star and current captain of Team Canada in the WBC. In the third, Ohtani’s command abandoned him, while a walk, some passed balls and a single led to Canada’s first run. Things went south an inning later, when a walk, a hit by pitch and two singles gave Canada the lead. That prompted the Japanese manager to come out of the dugout to make a pitching change, but Ohtani’s day was far from over.
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“I think they took him out of the game and he just ran into the outfield,” Robson said. “I think he played the outfield every inning he didn’t pitch.”
Ohtani also continued to take at-bats, launching an RBI single to left field in the seventh and drawing an intentional walk in the ninth. Japan took the lead in the seventh, but Canada sent the game into extra innings in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the ninth, with a two-run, game-tying home run by third baseman Jesse Hodges. The Canadians finally left the game on a wild pitch in the 10th, completing the upset.
“These are the kinds of games you dream about when you’re a kid,” Hodges said afterward. “Hitting a game-tying home run in the ninth inning for your country is the best feeling in the world.”
That victory would lead Canada to one of its best results on the international stage, a silver medal, following a loss to Team USA in the title game. Ohtani would pitch one more time in the tournament, in the fifth-place game against host Korea. In that one, he was dominant, striking out 12 in seven two-run innings, a more fitting harbinger of the stellar international career he would have.
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But that first outing? Against Canada? For Ohtani and his teammates, it was unforgettable. But for the Canadian players, it was a pivotal memory, one they think about to this day.
Said Robson: “I always say that to random people when they talk about Ohtani, like, ‘Oh, I played against him in high school.’
“They say, ‘What?'”