The Las Vegas Athletics may have found their potential franchise player in Japan after signing 18-year-old Shotaro Morii on Wednesday for a $1.5 million bonus deal. After a saddening end to the Athletics’ season and moving away from the historic Oakland Coliseum,

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he is much more than that at home in Japan. Ichiro is a wellspring of national pride — like Shohei Ohtani now —

Hoping to become a two-way player in Major League Baseball just like Shohei Ohtani, 18-year-old Shotaro Morii made the rare decision to bypass Japanese professional baseball entirely and agreed to a minor league contract with the Athletics.

Despite pursuing the two biggest Japanese superstars to come over to MLB in the past two years (Yoshinobu Yamamoto last offseason and Roki Sasaki this offseason

Asked whether the success of Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish and others ... He doesn't compare himself to Ohtani. “Shohei is really a baseball player far away from me ...

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he's much more than that in Japan. Back home, he's a wellspring of national pride, much like Shohei Ohtani now. His triumphs across the Pacific buoyed the nation as Japan's economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he’s much more than that in Japan. Back home, he’s a wellspring of national pride, much like Shohei Ohtani now. His triumphs across the Pacific buoyed the nation as Japan’s economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Asked whether the success of Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish and others ... He said he doesn't compare himself to Ohtani. "Shohei is really a baseball player far away from ...

Hoping to become a two-way player in Major League Baseball just like Shohei Ohtani, 18-year-old Shotaro Morii made the rare decision to bypass Japanese professional baseball entirely and agreed Wednesday to a minor league contract with the Athletics that includes a signing bonus of $1,510,500.

The baseball world was left delighted on Ichiro's induction into Cooperstown. But who opted to keep him off their ballot and deny him the glory of being a unanimous choice?

Derek Jeter, Sadaharu Oh and Hideki Matsui were among many to offer their praises Tuesday after former Seattle Mariners outfielder