Copyright New York Magazine
As someone who loves baseball more than is remotely healthy — as someone whom you could shake in the middle of the night, ask “who did George Steinbrenner trade for Willie McGee in October 1981?” and have “Bob Sykes!” ringing in your ears before either of us knew I was awake — I always appreciate when normal human beings, people whose brains are filled with actual useful information like their children’s birthdays, take an interest in my favorite sport. Unfortunately, that usually happens during a negative baseball news cycle. Baseball is a game that many people form their closest relationship with when they are young, impressionable and most likely to believe in myths and fairy tales. As they grow older, those people can’t help but compare the modern sport to the romanticized version in their heads.. Over the last decade, I’ve found that normies are more interested in asking the Baseball Nerd they know about cheating scandals, labor fights, and baseball’s fading place in the culture than they are about anything on the field. The sport is built on nostalgia, which is to say, it is built to disappoint you. But lately, these erstwhile fans are reaching out to me to express an entirely different, infinitely more uplifting, sentiment: Holy shit, Shohei Ohtani. There are many reasons why Shohei Ohtani is the biggest story in sports right now. But I’d say a major one is that he has almost singlehandedly brought back a sense of awe and wonder to a sport that many Americans had come to view as a moribund relic. Ohtani has been one of the best hitters and one of the best pitchers in baseball for a few years now (though this is the first season he has done it as the leader of the Dodgers, baseball’s new signature franchise now that it’s not the Yankees anymore). With his cartoonish feats of strength, speed, and finesse, he has broken through to broader consciousness like no other player of his era, with the possible exception of Aaron Judge. But last week, Ohtani experienced his true moment of instant cultural coronation, his version of Barack Obama at the 2004 DNC, Michael Jackson moonwalking at Motown 25, Brando yelling “Stellaaaa!” On Friday night, in Game Four of the National League Championship Series, Ohtani put on two separate all-time performances for the ages in the same game. As the starting pitcher, he threw six shutout innings, striking out 10 Brewers hitters while allowing only five baserunners. And then, in the same game, he hit three home runs, something only 12 players have ever done in the playoffs. That list includes Babe Ruth (twice), Albert Pujols, Reggie Jackson and George Brett — each of whom is now subsequently a franchise legend. Either one of these things is impressive enough. To do both at the same time, in a game that sent your team to the World Series, is downright inhuman. Just look at these homers. That’s Paul Bunyan and his ox shit. As the World Series begins on Friday, with the Dodgers attempting to win their second straight title, Ohtani is the signature personality of his sport, and this moment feels uniquely his. Unlike last year, there is no Judge or Juan Soto or Yankees aura to compete with him in the Series: The Dodgers will be facing the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays are no doubt a terrific story — they haven’t reached the World Series in 32 years and Canada absolutely loves them (that America has suddenly become a villain across the border doesn’t hurt). But a large swath of the sporting public nevertheless sees them as background characters in the Shohei story. (An added wrinkle in the Series: The Jays were the runners-up in the bidding for Ohtani when he signed with the Dodgers in free agency two years ago.) Last October, the Dodgers won but Ohtani himself struggled, going 2-for-19 thanks largely to a left shoulder subluxation. And he wasn’t even pitching back then, still recovering from Tommy John surgery. This time around, he’ll be a bit like Poochie from The Simpsons: Whenever Othani’s not on the field, everyone watching will be asking “Where’s Ohtani?” And why wouldn’t they be? For all the comparisons to Babe Ruth, Ruth, frankly, never did anything close to what Ohtani is doing. Ruth was never a great pitcher and a great hitter at the same time; he gave up pitching to concentrate on his hitting, which is what mortals have always done until now. The reason normal people, non-baseball fans, or lapsed baseball fans, are obsessed with Ohtani is that he is doing something new in a sport that most people, fairly or unfairly, have thought had little new left to offer. He looks like a grownup playing with children. He looks like he can’t possibly be real. There is a certain exhaustion among some people with the Dodgers, who have the highest payroll in the sport and seem to get any free agent they want — which is not true at all but in an existential way can feel true. Baseball has never been financially fair, but at least the Dodgers are a supremely well-run organization that, while indeed having more money than anyone else, are generally not stupid about how they spend it. (Unlike some organizations, ahem.) Still, it’s perfectly understandable not to root for the Dodgers in the World Series, particularly with such a likable team as the alternative. But even if you want the Dodgers to lose, you must acknowledge how special this moment is. We have never seen anything like it before, and we are sure not to see anything like it again. (Contrary to what some had hoped, Ohtani has not inspired a group of two-way-player imitators: It turns out this is something only he can do.) Ohtani is making people excited about baseball again, the way they did when they were children, the way they did when they once believed. Regardless of how you feel about this series — really, regardless of how you feel about baseball — it all feels like a gift.
