Dodgers Players Won’t Make Exception For Shohei Ohtani; He’ll Participate in Team Initiation

No exceptions, not even for the game's best player.

Not even $700 million can prevent Shohei Ohtani from going through with his new team's initiation process.

Infielder Miguel Rojas recently joined Chris Rose and discussed how important it is for his new teammate to come prepared.

The Dodgers initiate new players by making them sit on the toilet of the team bus if they don’t share a good story, which could be a little bit of an uncomfortable ride.

"I'm telling you right now, Shohei, you better come prepared to your first bus trip because the rules are the rules. We want to stories. How they become major league players and how everything started in Japan and stuff like that."

— Miguel Rojas via Talkin' Baseball

Could Ohtani get out of storytelling if there's a price tag on it?

The Dodgers are going to make Shohei sit on the toilet if he doesn’t tell a good story on the team bus pic.twitter.com/ZVlYy3OnvF

— Chris Rose Sports (@ChrisRoseSports) February 6, 2024

Rojas said he'd rather have an Ohtani story for the rest of his life than any amount of money less than his 2024 salary — $5 million. If Ohtani wants to "donate" that amount to Rojas, perhaps he could get avoid his fate. 

With $680 million of Ohtani's total outlay being deferred until 2034, he might want to start thinking of a story now, instead of withdrawing $5 million-plus to get out of his initiation.

If nothing else, Ohtani's gift to the team is Rojas' gift to us: we now know how the Dodgers are planning to "initiate" new players on the road.