What’s It Like to Be Shohei Ohtani? Only Bo Would Know.
Mark Gubicza has an thought, and he’s simply the man to make it occur. As a pitcher within the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s, Gubicza was a teammate of Bo Jackson on the Kansas City Royals. As a tv analyst now, he calls video games for the Los Angeles Angels, the group of Shohei Ohtani. His dream pregame present would deliver the 2 gamers collectively.
“Bo Knows Sho,” Gubicza stated this week, by the Angels’ dugout at Yankee Stadium. “I think we’re finally going to get it this year.”
Ohtani, the Angels’ pitching and hitting sensation, was born in the summertime of 1994, simply as Jackson’s celebrated athletic profession was ending. Jackson completed as a member of the Angels, of all groups, and performed his remaining recreation within the very ballpark the place Ohtani is forging his personal two-way legend.
Jackson was a two-way star in a special sense, the one participant ever to be an All-Star in baseball, as an outfielder for the Royals, and a Pro Bowler in soccer, as a operating again for the Los Angeles Raiders. Bo didn’t know pitching, like Ohtani, however he might have.
“We would joke around: ‘Do you ever think you could close?’ And he’d say, ‘Yeah, if I wanted to,’” Gubicza stated. “He could have done it easily, as hard as he threw. It was phenomenal just watching the stuff he did: the speed he had, the power he had. But then I look at Shohei and I could say the same about him: the speed, the power.
“I played against Deion Sanders and he was phenomenal, too, don’t get me wrong. But Bo, his presence, his athleticism and that wow factor is very similar to Shohei.”
Ohtani wowed the Bronx crowd in his first at-bat on Tuesday, ripping a line drive that sizzled into the Yankees’ bullpen in proper at 116.7 miles an hour. It was the third hardest-hit ball within the majors this season.
“Nothing new to me,” stated Mike Trout, a three-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award for the Angels, shaking his head and smiling after the sport. “That ball was hit pretty well — and low.”
Ohtani added a stolen base on Tuesday, smashed one other ball over the fence on Wednesday — the Yankees’ Aaron Judge introduced it again for a juggling catch — and would be the beginning pitcher at dwelling on Friday towards the Royals. He has made 11 begins in a row with out permitting greater than two runs, the longest energetic streak within the majors.
The finest fashionable comparisons to Ohtani, Gubicza stated, can be Jacob deGrom and Bryce Harper — an ace right-handed pitcher and a slugging left-handed hitter who additionally runs effectively. To be a fusion of each is unprecedented: Last season, Ohtani turned the primary participant ever with sufficient plate appearances to qualify for the batting title and sufficient innings to qualify for the E.R.A. title. Only a 62-homer season from Judge stored Ohtani from repeating because the American League M.V.P.
“He wants to be that person that everyone will talk about forever — not in a ‘look at me and how good I am’ way, but just ‘look at what I’m able to accomplish,’” stated Gubicza, who has spoken with an outdated teammate, David Cone, about Ohtani’s mind-bending feats.
“I talk to Coney all the time, ‘We couldn’t even walk after we pitched. Our shoulders, elbows, ribs, back, butt, everything was sore. And the next day he’s facing a guy throwing 98 and hitting a home run!’ It’s impossible to have that kind of discipline — for us mortals.”
Gubicza was there when Jackson turned mortal, dislocating his left hip throughout a Raiders playoff recreation at Los Angeles Coliseum in January 1991. Jackson had gotten Gubicza a sideline move, and it was Gubicza who discovered Jackson’s sons within the stands and introduced them to their father.
The damage ended Jackson’s N.F.L. profession after simply 4 seasons, however he made sufficient of an impression to typically be thought of the best athlete ever. The creator Jeff Pearlman, who wrote the definitive Jackson biography, “The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson,” in 2022, believes that, and sees Ohtani as one thing of an inheritor.
“Shohei Ohtani kind of is Bo Jackson,” Pearlman stated. “It’s not exactly the same, obviously, but it’s someone doing something we’ve never seen before at an insanely high level. So, to me, it’s as close as we’ve seen to Bo Jackson.”
Their origin tales help the parallel, Pearlman stated. Sports followers might see each phenomena off within the distance, however with solely a obscure notion of what was actually coming.
At Auburn within the Nineteen Eighties, Jackson was not precisely mysterious, however he was not but ubiquitous, both: He was a operating again who additionally hit dwelling runs and would possibly — or may not — do each within the execs. In Japan within the 2010s, Ohtani was effectively chronicled as a pitching and hitting star, however no one knew if — or how effectively — he might do each within the majors.
When each gamers went on to exceed expectations, they held followers and friends in awe.
“They’re both mythological creatures in a world that doesn’t have that many,” Pearlman stated. “It’s amazing how Ohtani actually transcends the modern thing where we have everything on video, so we feel like we’ve seen everything and it’s not that exciting. It’s like, I’ve seen Kevin Durant hit a jumper, I’ve seen Ja Morant dunk, but there’s something about Ohtani doing stuff that no one’s ever seen before that almost defies technological access to everything.”
There was no precedent for a participant succeeding at soccer and baseball to the diploma that Jackson did. And there isn’t any precedent for a participant starring as a full-time hitter and pitcher the best way Ohtani is; even Babe Ruth by no means fairly did each on a full-time foundation in the identical season.
Ohtani’s Tuesday homer got here on the a centesimal anniversary of the opening of the unique Yankee Stadium — The House That Ruth Built — in 1923. Ohtani stated he was conscious of the timing, however with free company arising after this season, he wouldn’t supply greater than pleasantries in regards to the setting.
“It’s a beautiful field, passionate fans,” Ohtani stated by an interpreter. “I always look forward to playing here.”
Historically, Ohtani has not hit effectively at Yankee Stadium: Though he had 4 homers in 12 video games earlier than Thursday’s matinee, his profession common within the Bronx was .140. Tuesday’s stolen base was his first in New York and his first of the season; the Angels are reluctant to danger damage to a participant so useful, however Ohtani has the velocity to run like Jackson.
“Other guys were fast, believe me, but nobody looked and sounded as fast as Bo going down the line — it sounded like a freight train,” Gubicza stated. “Now, with Shohei, you don’t even hear him. He’s got the Willie Wilson-type strides.”
Wilson was one other long-ago Royals teammate, a batting champion and a stolen base chief. But for sheer quantity of elite expertise, Ohtani almost stands alone.
“I just don’t know how you throw 101 and hit a ball 115 miles per hour off the bat,” Gubicza stated. “I don’t know how you do that.”
Bo is aware of — or at the least is aware of one thing prefer it. Now Gubicza simply must get him on the pregame present with Ohtani.
