Shohei Ohtani Adds to His Legend

The Babe charmed Japan on a barnstorming tour

Let me start by saying Babe Ruth is my favorite athlete, all-time.
Not just because I witnessed him, last game of 1947, clearly sick, addressing a crowd in Yankee Stadium.
Not just because he had coached for my Brooklyn Dodgers for a while.
Not just because I later met his daughter who talked about “Daddy.”

I consider him my favorite athlete because he could pitch and he could hit and he could entertain fans just by being “The Babe.”
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Now I can say, I have also seen Shohei Ohtani pitch and hit in the same game, for the World Baseball Classic, holding off the Americans with skill and power and flair, just like the Babe.
Whatever else is wrong with the world at the moment – don’t get me started – there is this versatile champion from Japan, thrilling fans around the world.

By now, you undoubtedly know that Ohtani saved Japan’s victory over the United States late Tuesday evening (Eastern time), closing the game by striking out his Los Angeles Angels teammate, Mike Trout, with a hellacious slider that broke clear across the plate.

If there is anything you don’t already know about Tuesday’s championship, try to log on to Tyler Kepner’s column in the Times, written right after the game.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/sports/baseball/shohei-ohtani-world-baseball-classic.html
Tyler touched all the bases, with gusto and knowledge, writing: “­ ­The tournament, it is safe to say, is no longer taking off. It is already in orbit.”

The Babe, it is said, saved baseball by hitting more home runs than anybody had ever done, 29, while still a starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in 1919.
In the same year, some members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to lose the so-called World Series, in a gambling plot, followed by sleazy legal maneuvers by the hangin’ jury of the baseball leadership. The Yankees purchased Ruth, who promptly hit 54 home runs and entertained the world (including Japan, on a barnstorming visit) for a decade and a half.

Now, Shohei Ohtani has pushed the baseball tournament toward the grand tournament for the world’s most popular sport, soccer/football, the World Cup. In its own quadrennial tournament last fall, Argentina’s elder superstar Lionel Messi held off France’s young superstar Kylian Mbappé in an exciting final.

Baseball still has a long way to go, around the world, but at least Ohtani has nudged his sport into the discussion of world events.
Ohtani made baseball a 24-hour spectacle. I confess, as a notorious early bird, that I have rarely caught a glimpse of Ohtani (or, for that matter, Mike Trout.) I’m a Mets guy, a National League guy. But now Ohtani, with one inning of smoke, has inserted himself into worldwide consciousness.

I woke up Wednesday morning and found an email from our friend Fumio, who used to live across the street on Long Island – such nice people, I think of him and Akie every day. back home in Japan.
I replied to Fumio that as a baseball fan and a journalist, I recognized that the “story” was this poised young superstar holding off his Angels teammate and the American all-stars.

It is now 105 years since Babe Ruth pitched and hit the Red Sox to a “world” championship.
Imagine. One hundred and five years. An accomplishment I can legitimately label “Ruthian.”