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The highlights of Ohtani's season.
Ohtani had an amazing season at the plate and on the mound. Relive some of his highlights. The first part of the story is over.
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It's easy to think that everything has been done before in professional sports.
We can see sporting brilliance every week of our lives because of the many fine-tuned athletes pushing each other to the peak of human potential. It's rare to see anything that isn't just a better, more prolific version of something we've already seen.
The Los Angeles Angels' two-way star Shohei Ohtani is the winner of The Associated Press' Male Athlete of the Year Award.
The American League's Most Valuable Player put together a season with no analogue in the past century. Since Babe Ruth starred at the plate and on the mound for the Boston Red Sox in 1919, no one has been an every-day two-way player for more than a few decades.
"He's doing something we haven't seen in our lifetimes, but he's also doing it at the very highest level of hitting and pitching," Angels manager Joe Maddon said late in the regular season. He's doing more than other players, but he's also doing it better than almost everyone else on that field, and those are the greatest players in the game. He's playing their game, but he's also playing a different game.
While playing in 126 games, Ohtani hit 46 homers and drove in 100 runs with a.962 OPS, which was the best in the American League. He finished third in the majors in homers after leading the sport for much of the season.
Ohtani started 23 games on the mound, going 9-2 with a 3.18 earned run average and 156 strikeouts over 13013innings as the Angels' ace and one of the top right-handed pitchers in the American League. His splitter is the best pitch in baseball, with movement that resembles a ball rolling off the edge of a table.
Ohtani stole 26 bases and scored 103 runs in the majors. He played a little outfield when asked, and led the league with eight triples.
A player hitting his prime in his fourth season after moving from Japan would be impressive.
Doing it all at the same time is something that no one has ever seen before.
Baseball's historians and statheads were buried up to their eyes in dusty record books this summer as they tried to identify the last players to accomplish the statistical feats Ohtani was currently blazing past.
Ohtani's season was called "nothing short of electric" by Mike Trout.
"I felt like I was back in Little League at times," Trout said. It was amazing to watch a player hit a home run, steal a base, and then play right field.
Despite his soft-spoken personality and single-minded focus on his sport, Ohtani has become an icon wherever baseball is played and a known figure even beyond the game's traditional borders.
Alex Cora, the manager of the Red Sox, said in July that he had never seen fans get to ballparks so early. That's what he's bringing to the equation. I like it. You can hear the oohs and aahs when he's at the plate. I think it's great for baseball.
Ohtani's success caused fans to pay attention to both sides of the Pacific, but also renewed a debate about the merits of sports specialization in a country where young athletes are often encouraged to stop competing in multiple disciplines even before they reach their teens. Big league teams are increasingly open to the possibility of two-way contributors across their organizations, even though nobody currently has Ohtani's overall talents.
Ohtani lives in Anaheim and Japan, but he is always gracious when he is praised for his accomplishments. He expresses the confidence necessary to do such a thing in the first place, but sometimes he seems surprised by his success, while at other times he expresses the quiet confidence necessary to do such a thing.
Ohtani said through his interpreter that he feels like he needs to grow every year and that he has been able to do that.
Ohtani's achievements are even more impressive because they've happened with the Angels, who are arguably the majors' most disappointing franchise of the last half-decade despite their hefty payroll and elite talent.
Despite Ohtani'sculean efforts, the Los Angeles Dodgers missed the playoffs for the seventh straight year and only won 77 games due to Trout's injury. Ohtani was protected in the batting order by a terrible lineup.
The Angels will have better times in 2022, and Ohtani says his biggest goal is to win a title. Ohtani will always be remembered for his amazing 2021. season that blew the sports world's collective mind.
Maddon said it was a wonderful year. Only one person can duplicate it. That would be him.
