I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention. You either know this or you don’t. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and say that it’s well-known that the dream of every young American boy is to grow up to be a great major league baseball player. You might be either a great hitter or a great pitcher — certainly not both.
The informal rules have changed and an epiphany has happened right before our very eyes. There is one player in the majors right now who has changed the fabric of how we view the game. He is oustanding as a hitter and outstanding as a pitcher. In fact, he’s possibly the best overall hitter in the majors at this moment. He’s leading the majors with 26 homers as of today. He’s also leading in RBIs (runs batted in ).
Shohei Ohtani hails from Japan. The Angels signed him (I think) in 2017. He came in and starred for a while, but then he got injured and had Tommy John surgery, forcing him to sit out a year. Then Covid happened. So it wasn’t until 2021 that he really blossomed into both a superb pitcher and batter. He won MVP in 2021. In 2022 he had another stellar season, finishing second in MVP voting. And in 2023, he’s on track for another MVP if he keeps going the way he’s going.
As a hitter, he hits the ball HARD … that ball may end up in orbit one of these days. His form is perfect — he gets his full body strength into the swing and his arms zoom through the swing.
At www.mlb.com you’ll usually see an article or two on his latest heroics. Pretty amazing.
As a pitcher, he’s fast (102 mph) but has a large variety of pitches in his arsenal, including a slider that’s next to impossible to get any wood on it at all. His sense of arm motion and fingertip ball control is such that he’s been known to see a pitch one night — a pitch that baffles him and causes him to strike — and then he’ll figure it out and be throwing that same pitch by the next game.
Anyway, what I really intended to write about was the JOY that Shohei brings to the game. The guy smiles. He works hard, yes. He’s busting his buns out there on the field. But he’s enjoying the game.
Not since Hank Aaron have I rooted for a player so cheerfully. I was the happiest fan on the planet when Hank hit his 715th in 1974.
In many ways, Ohtani reminds me of Hank. He’s not trying to get the most money or the acclaIm and all the fame. He wants to play ball. He does want to play on a good team — the Angels are good right now, playing above .500 ball and only 6 games back from the top spot at the moment. With Mike Trout and some other up-and-coming hitters in the lineup, they’ll be winning more games than not. (example: They beat Colorado 25-1 a couple of nights ago).
I don’t know anything about Shohei’s disposition, but he seems like a genuinely good guy. He’s the new face of American baseball. That’s awesome.
I wish great success for him. Go Shohei!