The Most Overlooked Market In Sneakers

The line from Hideo Nomo’s first signature to Ohtani’s record-chasing cleats is the proof.

August 5th, 1995. One day after my birthday.

I was a kid in the back of my grandparents’ Oldsmobile, headed from Sacramento to San Francisco with my dad and my grandparents for a Giants game. That drive is normally ninety minutes, maybe two hours if the traffic on the way into the city decides to be difficult. We left early on purpose, because the plan w…