Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Joe Davis made the electrifying call during MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run: “On a 1-2, Ohtani sends one in the air the other way. Back it goes … GONE! One of a kind player! One of a kind season! Shohei Ohtani starts the 50/50 club!”
On Sept. 19, in the Dodgers game against the Marlins, Shohei Ohtani made history by setting a baseball record that no one even thought was possible: hitting 50 home runs and stealing 50 bases in a single season.
Since transferring from Japan to enter the MLB in 2018, Ohtani’s career has been nothing short of dominant. What exactly sets him apart? Here are some key takeaways from his historic season and inspiring career that could benefit anyone on and off the field.
Challenge normal conventions
Many argue that hitting a 100-mph baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. Others argue that it’s just as hard to throw 100-mph pitches. By this logic, it would be impossible to do both. In fact, the last MLB player to both pitch and hit at a high level was the legendary Babe Ruth himself in the 1920s. These days, with the competitiveness of professional baseball, most coaches and players believe in focusing solely on either hitting or pitching. Nevertheless, at a young age, Ohtani set his mind to doing both.
When he was being scouted after high school, Ohtani said, “There wasn’t anyone [in the MLB] who was looking at me as a pro baseball player who could bat. I didn’t think I’d have the option of doing both.”
Ohtani postponed his MLB dream and decided to sign with a Japanese team to develop himself as both a quality hitter and a pitcher. After proving himself, he soon was offered a chance to be a two-way player in the MLB for the Los Angeles Angels. Since then, Ohtani has smashed expectations in the hitting and pitching departments and set new standards for the game. In fact, in 2022, the MLB created a new rule nicknamed the “Ohtani Rule,” as he was the impetus for it, which allows a pitcher to remain in the game as a designated hitter after being relieved on the mound. Just because your aspirations don’t yet exist in the “rulebook” doesn’t mean they are not worth pursuing. Maybe you’ll get a new rule named after you, too.
Don’t let doubters get you down
Ohtani’s transition to the MLB was not smooth. He made the move to the MLB from Japan after seeing a ton of success in the Japanese equivalent of the MLB, so expectations were high. Unfortunately, in his first spring training with the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani hit and pitched very poorly, posting career lows in almost every hitting and pitching metric. Several MLB scouts and rival teams, including ones who had tried to sign Ohtani before spring training, commented that Ohtani would never make it at the major league level.
“He’s basically like a high school hitter because he’s never seen a good curveball,” one anonymous scout said.
Ohtani blocked out all of the harsh criticism and stayed calm and resilient. His interpreter relayed Ohtani’s attitude:
“It doesn’t bother him,” the interpreter said. “He is going to keep doing the same thing.”
The Angels GM took comfort in Ohtani’s calm confidence, stating: “When your players are calm, you’re calm, too.”
Ultimately, Ohtani proved all of the naysayers wrong by making a huge comeback during the regular season and winning the Rookie of the Year award. He is now a two-time unanimous MVP winner, the only one in MLB history. Those scouts no doubt feel a little sheepish now. Who knows where Ohtani would be if he let them shake his confidence.
Being the best takes more than talent
Designated hitters like Ohtani who have a 6-foot-4, 240-lb frame and are made to crush home runs usually are not the fastest MLB players. While Ohtani ranks in the 70th percentile (172 out of 566) of qualified MLB players in terms of speed, his speed is nowhere near that of top-tier MLB base stealers. Despite this fact, Ohtani still ended up recording 59 stolen bases this season, the second most in the MLB. Before this year, the most bases he had ever stolen in a single season was 26. According to the Dodgers’ first base coach, what has made the difference is Ohtani’s relentless efforts to study and look for even the smallest ways to improve his base-stealing skills, such as picking up tells in the opposing pitchers’ movements. The Dodgers have praised his strong work ethic, posting videos of his meticulous approach to his workouts. A popular anecdote from his time in Japan tells how the Nippon Ham manager received a message early Christmas morning with a video of Ohtani hitting balls at 1 a.m. to practice his mechanics while the rest of his teammates were out celebrating their Japan Series win. Now that’s effort, and it is what has made him the player he is today.
Don’t let setbacks define your limits
Although Ohtani is the only active MLB player to both pitch and hit, he unfortunately tore the UCL ligament in his elbow for the second time in the 2023 season, an injury that would keep him from pitching in the 2024 season. Instead of getting frustrated or stepping away from baseball, Ohtani decided to focus his efforts on his hitting and went even further by doubling his efforts with base stealing. In this season, despite actively recovering from elbow surgery, Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to join the 50 home runs/50 stolen bases club. Ohtani smashed a career high 54 home runs, swiped a career high 59 bases, and racked up another career high 130 runs batted in. Along the way to these records, he overcame other smaller setbacks, including a 30-game slide in which his batting average continually decreased and a slump where he struck out in six consecutive at-bats. He was 1 for 12 in three games before becoming only the third MLB player in history to get a home run, triple, walk, hit-by-pitch and stolen base all in one game. Let us also not forget that despite striking out at least 140 times in the last four years of his batting career, he still puts up MVP numbers every year.
Always embrace humility and respect
If you watch Ohtani closely, you will notice that he goes out of his way to be polite and respectful both on and off the baseball field. Despite being a worldwide phenomenon, Ohtani still keeps a humble attitude, which makes him likable and a fan-favorite across the world. In his early days, his high school baseball coach ingrained a sense of humility in him by assigning him toilet-cleaning duties. That humility is still apparent today. Fans can find a Youtube video with compiled clips of him picking up trash in the dugout and the field. It is a sign of his respect for the field and the game. He has never thrown down his equipment after a walk, is always respectful towards the umpire and always seems to be smiling. He even donated his $150,000 earnings from the 2021 home run derby to the Angels support staff as a thank-you and did it without any fanfare. It might seem like his first priority is his personal record, but Ohtani puts his team above his individual success.
“Obviously, the closer I get to 50/50, the more I’m contributing to the team win,” Ohtani said. “If that’s how it is, I’m happy for that.”
The Dodgers’ executive vice president Lon Rosen put it succinctly: “He’s got that special quality to be so enormously talented and still everyone feels like, ‘He’s just like me.’”
