I would have posted this Friday night when it happened, but the item in the Post was only brought to my attention yesterday.
It says things I might have said if I were more confident in my ability to comment on baseball. But on Friday night, I was just saying “Wow,” and not going much beyond that.
Now, I find it being said by an actual professional sportswriter, and said in these words: “Shohei Ohtani just played the greatest game in baseball history.” Sure, Chelsea Janes isn’t Ring Lardner, and she’s young, but she’s The Washington Post‘s “national baseball writer,” and Ring Lardner’s dead. So I’m going with what she said, since the same idea was kinda roaming around in my gut when it happened.
Hers was a daring statement. Journalists don’t usually go out on a limb this far, because they know other journalists will snicker and give them the business. But I think that in this case, what that headline says may well be right on the mark. And that fact alone is pretty exciting.
Here, in part, is how she supports her claim:
LOS ANGELES — This is Beethoven at a piano. This is Shakespeare with a quill. This is Michael Jordan in the Finals. This is Tiger Woods in Sunday red.
This is too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of the debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game, the most talented hitter and pitcher of an era in which data and nutrition have made an everyman’s sport a game for superhumans. And Friday night, when he helped his Los Angeles Dodgers win the pennant with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, was his Mona Lisa.
It’s hard to say when the possibility of exaggeration around Ohtani evaporated. Maybe it was when he struck out the side in the top of the first, then hit a leadoff home run in the bottom of the inning, though that is almost banal by his standards.
Maybe it was when his second homer sailed over the pavilion in right-center field at Dodger Stadium and landed 469 feet away, at which point Ohtani had more hits in four innings than he had allowed to the Brewers — and scored as many runs in those four innings as Milwaukee had in Games 1 and 2 combined.
Certainly, by the time he hit his third homer in the seventh inning and sent many of his teammates’ heads into their hands in disbelief, everyone in the ballpark knew they were watching the greatest game any player had ever played: Ohtani pitched six-plus scoreless innings and struck out 10. He also had the 13th three-homer game in postseason history — the first, it goes without saying, that included walking off the pitcher’s mound to a standing ovation….
Convinced? If you’re not, you probably missed the game…
Related
Related Posts
Sure, you might think Aaron Judge is Superman, because he hit 53 home runs this year.
But can he pitch? And by the way, Ohtani hit 55…
Sure, Judge had the best batting average in the MLB. But that ain’t everything.
Again, can he pitch?
Seriously, I think Judge is great. I also think Spider Man is great. But that don’t make him Superman…
And. yeah, I’m prejudiced. I’m a Red Sox fan, and Judge is a Yankee.
And the Dodgers are my third-favorite team, after the second-place Phillies. So I’m cheering for Brooklyn. I mean, LA.
But I sure wish Mookie was back with the Sox…
Oh, I could tell you were a Sox fan, since you didn’t compare him to Babe Ruth, another pitcher who could hit home runs …. 🙂
Oh, I have been making the comparison — it just didn’t come up on this post.
And remember — the Babe started his brilliant career with the Sox. We prefer not to talk about what happened later…
Great article! I am a huge fan of Chelsea James! Live her writing, especially on baseball. And yes, “Shotime” might be better than advertised! What a GREAT game (for the Dodgers at least…)
And I am happy that the Blue Jays won last night. After they frustrated the aspirations of my Red Sox (and the Yankees), I’d like to see them lose to the Dodgers, thereby making them the first to win back-to-back championships in this century…
(Is that rather malicious and vindictive of me? I mean, I don’t even know these guys, and I want to see them lose to settle a personal score…)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6730324/2025/10/20/greatest-performance-sport-ohtani-messi/?source=athletic_user_shared_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta