Shohei Ohtani’s GREATEST Moments So Far..

Welcome back to MLB Madness. Here’s some news for you about Shohei Ohtani. Not since Babe Ruth has a baseball player been able to pitch and hit at an elite level in the major leagues. Not until Shohei Ohtani, that is. He was a star in his native Japan, playing for Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters before crossing the Pacific to play for the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. Expectations for Ohtani were enormous, but after his promising start was sullied by injuries, no one thought he would come back to have a 2021 season for the record books.

Ohtani is considered a “unicorn,” an athlete with a rare gift. At his best as a pitcher, he throws fastballs at over 100 mph. Offensively, he’s capable of crushing 470-foot home runs and stealing bases with ease. All this, and he’s only in his 20s. He’s a talent, unlike anything the league has seen in the modern era. Fletcher gives a brief history of Ohtani’s early life in Japan, taking note of the fierce love Ohtani has for the game and looking at the decisions that led to his leap to the American League. His reputation preceded him, partially thanks to a jaw-dropping viral 2016 YouTube video showing Ohtani smashing a home run through the roof of the Tokyo Dome. “Sho-time,” tells how Ohtani narrowed down the pool of suitors and surprised everyone by choosing the Angels, who were thrilled, since signing a two-way player is essentially getting two stars for the price of one. But they were also concerned about how much to use him, fearing injury. Their worry was justified. It would take two surgeries and extensive rehabilitation for Ohtani to fully return to the game after playing partial seasons in 2019 and 2020. In the 2021 season, Ohtani silenced the whispers about his ability to be a two-way player by hitting a total of 46 home runs and as a pitcher allowing an average of 3.18 runs per game – astonishing figures, especially since he consistently played on the mound and at the plate in the same games. He was the silver lining of an otherwise lackluster season for the Angels, and his star power drew crowds.

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