Most of the time in professional sports, it’s easy to think that everything has already been accomplished.
With so many super-trained athletes constantly pushing themselves to the limit of human performance, it is possible to witness unprecedented demonstrations of sporting excellence every week. But it is really rare to witness something that is not simply a better or more productive version of what has already been seen.
That’s why Shohei Ohtani’s astonishing redefinition of modern baseball captured world attention so vividly in 2021 – and that’s why the Los Angeles Angels star, who shines as a pitcher and as a hitter, is the winner. The Associated Press Award for Male Athlete of the Year.
The unanimous winner of the AL Most Valuable Player award had an unparalleled season in the sport in the past century. In decades, hardly anyone had been a pitcher and hitter – and no one has been one of the best sluggers and one of the most outstanding pitchers since Babe Ruth shone at the plate and the mound for the Boston Red Sox in 1919.
“He’s doing something we haven’t seen in our lives, but he’s also doing it at the highest level of hitting or pitching,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said at the end of the regular season. “He is doing more than the other players, but he is also doing better than almost everyone on the field, and we are talking about the best in the sport, his contemporaries. He is playing the same sport, but also a different game ”.
Ohtani hit 46 home runs and drove in 100 runs, with a .965 OPS in 126 games as the AL’s best designated hitter, as certified by his Silver Bat. He was third in the majors in home runs, having led most of the season.
The Japanese also started 23 games on the mound, with a 9-2 record, an ERA of 3.18 and 156 strikeouts in 130 1/3 innings as the ace of the Angels’ rotation and one of the best right-handers. in the Americana. He has a 100 mph fastball, but his splitter might be the best pitch in baseball, with a motion that looks like a ball rolling off the edge of a table.
The Japanese player, who is 1.95 meters (6 feet 4 inches) tall, was also one of the fastest runners on the bases, stealing 26 and scoring 103 runs. He even led the league in triples, with 8 – and played as an outfielder when necessary.
Any of these achievements would be impressive for a 27-year-old who is showing the best batting in his career, during his fourth season since moving from Japan to the majors.
And hardly any person alive has ever seen one player do it all.
Ohtani had baseball historians and statisticians dust off the record books of the early 20th century to identify players who had achieved such remarkable and rare numbers as his.
Mike Trout, Ohtani’s teammate and a three-time AL Most Valuable Player award winner, called the Japanese campaign “nothing short of electrifying.”
“At times, it felt like I was back in Little League,” added Trout. “Watching a player pitch eight innings, hit a home run, steal a base and then play right field is incredible.”
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