ANAHEIM, Calif. _ It was not even 10 o'clock on Sunday morning. The Los Angeles Angels would play the Oakland Athletics, but not for another three hours.
At that hour, the players usually speed right on into the parking lot. Not on this day.
"There's a carnival going on out there," one of the players said as he walked into the clubhouse.
The player spoke not out of jealousy, but out of wonderment. The concept that traffic would be so clogged so many hours before a game in Anaheim is something new, something different, something amazing.
So is Shohei Ohtani.
The Angels sold out. They sold 44,742 tickets, more than for opening day, more than for any regular-season day game since they downsized their stadium 20 years ago.
What could be more dramatic than Ohtani hitting a home run in his first at-bat at Angel Stadium? How about pitching a perfect game in his first start at Angel Stadium?
Ohtani very nearly did, nearly enough to get the crowd cheering in anticipation of third strikes in the fifth and sixth innings. With one out in the seventh, when Marcus Semien ended the perfect game by slapping a 96-mph fastball into left field, the crowd rose and rewarded Ohtani with a warm ovation.
In response, he flashed a thumbs-up sign.
He struck out the side in the first inning, and 12 in all. He gave up one hit. His fastball ran as fast as 99.6 mph. His last fastball _ on his next-to-last pitch, his 90th _ hit 98 mph. He got strikeouts with his wicked splitter. He dropped in a curve at 68.5 mph, just for the heck of it, to a stunned Matt Joyce.
He induced 24 swinging strikes, the most by any major league pitcher this season.
Ohtani became the first player in 99 years to win two games and hit three home runs within the first 10 games of a season. The last: Jim Shaw _ nickname: "Grunting Jim" _ of the 1919 Washington Senators.
In those first 10 games, Ohtani has a 2.08 earned-run average and an .889 slugging percentage. He leads the team in wins, and is tied for the team lead in home runs.
There was little suspense about whether Ohtani would win. After he struck out the side in the first inning, Albert Pujols doubled in a run in the bottom of the inning. The Angels scored twice in the first, Trout homered in the third, and the Angels were well on their way to a 6-1 victory.
Ohtani's feats inspired a walk through baseball history.
He became the third player in major league history with a double-digit strikeout game and a home run in three consecutive games, joining Babe Ruth (1921) and Ken Brett (1973).
He tied an Angels record with 18 strikeouts in his first two games. He tied the American League record with 12 strikeouts in one of his first two starts.
And he accomplished all these feats with a world watching, including a live broadcast on NHK that started at 5 a.m. in Japan.
By game time, some 200 reporters were on hand. As manager Mike Scioscia spoke with about 45 reporters earlier Sunday, about 2 { hours before game time, he said he did not remember how many reporters had assembled for his pregame talk Saturday.
"Raise your hand if you were here yesterday," Scioscia said.
Five hands went up.
