The media craze for the Los Angeles Angels has notably and unsurprisingly dropped since Shohei Ohtani left for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ohtani has attracted attention like few others in the sport. Many players across MLB have described it as something they've never seen before.
With both a national and international frenzy surrounding one of the stars and best players in the sport, the mania for Ohtani was compared to that of the Beatles, according to Anthony Rendon.
Now, the Angels are out of the band.
“Someone said the last few years maybe this was what being in the Beatles was like. You don’t get used to (the attention), but you kind of expect it. Now it’s like being kicked out of the band.”
— Anthony Rendon, via The Athletic's Sam Blum and Brittany Ghiroli.
Of course, there have been few media spectacles like there was for the Beatles, or Beatle Mania, back in the 1960s. The band was the most popular and talked about music group for almost all of the decade. They became several of the biggest global pop culture icons the world has ever seen and some of their songs and cultural moments are among the most famous six decades later.
That Ohtani can even be compared to the Beatles speaks to how much attention has gone his way since the superstar pitcher and designated hitter came to MLB in 2018. That showed again on Thursday, when the first public photo of Ohtani's wife went viral instantly.
For the Angels, that means things are a lot quieter for the team with Ohtani leaving, or as Rendon put it, they're out of the band now. Though Ohtani was a great contributor for both the team and locker room, it's been nice for some players to have more space in the locker room and less media constantly around.
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