Foul Play: The Shohei Show

Shohei Ohtani has done something nobody else has ever done in the history of Major League Baseball. I know that doesn’t seem like too much to start, it’s a sport, records are meant to be broken. But MLB is over a hundred years old. Nearly a quarter of a million games have been played. Nearly 25,000 players have played in it. There is so much history in that sport, that it is hard, nearly impossible even, to be one of one.

And in the past few days, Shohei Ohtani has done it, and I’m not sure if he will ever be dethroned.

Now, barring being a two-way player extraordinaire, Shohei spent this season on rehab from pitching, and focusing entirely on being the best bat he could. This meant that apparently, Shohei decided he wanted to be the greatest player in history in a different way, and took aim at one of the most impressive feats in history: the 50–50 club.

Okay, I gotta explain. In baseball, there are these things called stolen bases, which are indicative of how fast you are, and these things called home runs, which are indicative of how strong you are, and it’s very, very rare for someone to be great at both. The 40–40 club — 40 stolen bases, 40 home runs — is only populated by a half-dozen people, many of whom are very good at one thing and for one season turned on the jets in the other. And not to mention, homers and stolen bases are mutually exclusive. You need to get on base and steal, and you can’t do that if you hit a homer. It’s a combination of skills.

Shohei, who is not a power hitter, or a speedster on the paths, decided, hey, I can do that, and just went on a tear. He’s now only a homer or two behind Aaron Judge and quickly becoming an unstoppable force on the evil empire known as the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Shohei Ohtani at bat in 2018. Courtesy of Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons.

He hit the 50-50 club following an absolutely incredible 6-for-6 three-homer, 10-RBI game, one which could be considered the best game in MLB history (he scored 0.7 WAR for that game alone, implying he basically won 70% of that game). He’s a beast, one of the greatest players in history, and a pleasure to watch. Shohei, please stop playing for the Dodgers.