Baseball phenom echoes Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas: Quiet on the field

You know how PGA Tour golfers unhappy with “Get in the hole” guy and his fellow nitwit spectators yelling “Baba Booey” and other inanities often point out that their sport is different from football and baseball games in which fans shout at players throughout the games?

Well, tell that to Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese sensation who throws 100 MPH and bats for power and average. Ohtani, the Los Angeles Angels’ two-way phenom, may be better suited to plying his trade in hushed environs like Augusta National than in major league ballparks.

Remember how Rory McIlroy reached for the Advil after playing the opening two rounds with Tiger Woods at Riviera, and Justin Thomas got a fan booted from the gallery during the final round of the Honda Classic because the guy was rooting against him?

Well, it seems that Ohtani, who has made quite a splash in his first couple weeks as an Angels’ pitcher and designated hitter, has taken a page from the golf superstars’ playbook, or at least some associated with the MLB rookie have. With a stadium less than half-full of fans Friday night in Kansas City, USA Today reported that three Japanese college exchange students sitting behind the visiting Angels’ dugout were “screaming” when their countryman came to bat, trying to get his attention — until someone in the Angels’ organization got a Kauffman Stadium security guard to ask them to pipe down.

Unlike the idiots who increasingly continue to spoil everyone’s experience at golf tournaments other than the Masters (where such hooting and howling are verboten), the fans hushed right up and remained mum when Ohtani next came to the plate.

“He heard it, he’s thankful for the cheers,’’ Ohtani’s interpreter said after the game, “but at the plate, he likes to focus and block out the noise.”

And while Ohtani said he was aware of the loud cheering, he noted he did not request quiet.

“[The Angels] just did it so everyone could focus at the plate,” Ohtani, who throws righty, bats from the portside, and went 2-for-4 in his team’s 5-4 win, told USA Today. “I was thankful for that.”

So if you wish to see the Angels’ whiz kid, maybe pretend you’re watching McIlroy line up a shot and refrain from yelling “mashed potatoes” — or whatever the baseball equivalent of that idiotic bleat would be.

Tell that to the fans in the Bronx, who are already booing the Yankees’ big offseason acquisition, Giancarlo Stanton, and we’re not even a month into the baseball season.