After much speculation, it was finally publicly known who the Japanese star’s wife is. Shohei Ohtani who just a few days ago took to his social networks to announce that he had married, although he did not reveal the name of his partner, nor did he publish any photo of her.
However, this Thursday, just before the Los Angeles Dodgers will travel to Seoul, South Korea, for the series that will open the 2024 Major League season against the San Diego Padres, the team’s social media team published a photograph in which Ohtani can be seen with his wife.
The image, which was initially uploaded to the player’s Instagram account, shows Mamiko Tanaka, a famous former basketball player from Japan, at his side.
“She’s a Japanese woman and I don’t feel comfortable talking about when we got married, the exact date and stuff,” Ohtani told reporters shortly after announcing the news of their marriage. “But she is a normal Japanese woman.”
A look at Ohtani’s wife:
Tanaka, currently 27 years old, left basketball unexpectedly in 2023 and that sudden retirement set off some alarms in the Asian country at the time, as Ohtani had also revealed that his partner was two years younger than him.
“Mana”, as she is also known, played in the Japan Women’s Basketball League between 2019 and 2023, for the Waseeda Universitythe Seitoku University of Tokyo and the Fujitsu Red Wave.
Throughout his professional career, Ohtani has been very reserved regarding his private life. Recently, shortly after entering free agency, the Japanese indicated that he would discard any team that announced that it had met to negotiate with him.
