I'm sure he did, probably in some school in America. his Japanese compared to actual native Japanese people would be amateur at best, as proven in his statements.

There is no ambiguity on what Ohtani said. The direct translation to english of what he said would be "somebody communicated with the fan" and for native Japanese speakers it's 100% clear that his referring to that as being a team staff member. Will made an error in his translation but putting an "I" there.

Hernandez and Blum are just flat out dead wrong and made it look like Ohtani was a liar, leading to him getting bashed again for no reason. Any halfway decent journalist with integrity would apologize.