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Sports

Shohei Ohtani Picks...The Angels?

Japan's Babe Ruth has decided to hitch his wagon to the Los Angeles Angels' star, for some fucking reason.
Sipa USA-USA TODAY NETWORK

Shohei Ohtani, the most sought after and obtainable free agent in recent memory, has finally made his selection and it's a real, real curious one. Ohtani, due to the international signing pool bonus restrictions in baseball's collective bargaining agreement and, like, free will and shit, could have literally signed with any of the 30 teams in MLB. And for some reason, he chose the Angels.

Ohtani first whittled the teams down by eliminating basically the entire portion of the country fom the east coast to the Mississippi river, including deep pockets like the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Then he settled on a group of seven teams, including the Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs, and Angels. His pursuit sparked activity the likes of which baseball has never seen, with teams making trades specifically to acquire more signing bonus money and players they might not necessarily need, just in the hopes of possibly landing a generational talent.

And he chose the Angels. The Angels, who have made the playoffs once in the past seven years (they got swept in the divisional series in 2014). The Angels, who go through some identity crisis every six years or so and change their name to something ridiculous like Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim or The We Are Trying To Please Basically All of California Angels or whatever. The Angels, who have a player who is unanimously considered best in the game and no one seems to care about him because they are a boring franchise with a crusty manager and a mean-spirited owner. Ohtani chose the Angels.

The only real positive takeaway is that maybe Mike Trout will get some help and get some time in the playoffs.