Yoshinobu Yamamoto Gifted a Surprise Present by New Dodgers Teammate
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is clearly making a strong impression with his new ballclub.
The highly-prized free agent signee out of Japan made his debut for the Dodgers this week in Arizona at spring training. After wowing Gavin Lux and a plethora of reporters, Yamamoto continued in his ramp-up for the Seoul Series next month when the Dodgers will square off with the Padres for a two-game set.
When Yamamoto got back to his locker in the clubhouse, he found a very special gift -- along with a note from new teammate Miguel Rojas.
The gift was presumably a nice bottle of wine, along with this nice message:
Yamamoto posted this image to his Instagram story along with a 'thank you' in response to the gesture by the veteran shortstop.
Now, this might seem like a rather mundane thing. Rojas is welcoming the new guy in with a classy gift. However, this sets an important tone moving forward. For one, Yamamoto is playing in a new league and thus is living in a new country thousands of miles away from home.
While acclimating to the big leagues and the city of Los Angeles will take some time, it has to be nice to know that Yamamoto has the support of teammates who've been in his shoes before.
In addition, fostering team chemistry for the expected push toward a World Series is imperative. We've seen other 'superteams' struggle and ultimately underachieve because they couldn't get their proverbial act together despite the talent advantage they had over opponents. The Dodgers unfortunately have seen that act before themselves.
In this case, cultivating these habits now early in the season -- even with the simplest of gestures -- could ultimately go a long way in allowing for the Dodgers to live up to the hype and eventually compete for a World Series title.
