Shohei Ohtani, Princess of Baseball and Shinning Magnet, Centre of Attention @ 2023 MLB All-Star Game
Shohei Ohtani, Princess of Baseball and Shinning Magnet, Centre of Attention @ 2023 MLB All-Star Game
SEATTLE: Isn’t extraordinary or just a routine in MLB super game of USA? Halfway through the baseball season, baseball’s brightest star will receive a new uniform and a blank cheque @round 2023 MLB All-Star Game. The performance is running in numbers and now shared in bank accounts.
You would be excused for thinking that Shohei Ohtani called a meeting of baseball’s best this week to decide who should be his teammate if you were dropped off at T-Mobile Park without knowing it was holding the MLB All-Star Game.
Ohtani, on the other hand, didn’t come across as being as self-absorbed as his rivals (potential suitors?).
Ohtahni – The Best MLB All Star Game 2023
See, Ohtani is playing baseball in a way that could be better described as “creating living history” than as “hitting homers” or “pitching well” or even as “tallying beaucoups of Wins Above Replacement.”
The incredible element is, of course, that he is actually doing all of those things. At the All-Star break, he has 100 and one-third innings of 3.32 ERA ball under his belt as a starting pitcher and is first in baseball with 32 home runs and a 1.050 OPS.
This is a player whose accomplishments have rendered comparisons to Babe Ruth trite, not because they are excessive but because they fail to do justice to the breadth of his two-way greatness.
As the significance of his career becomes apparent and a decisive decision on his future looms greater and larger, he is also accomplishing these things for the always disappointing Los Angeles Angels.
A new uniform and a clean chequebook await him halfway through the season.
Ohtani will almost certainly test the free agency waters when the current season concludes.
If the Angels, who are 45-46 and five games out of the last AL wild-card spot due to a spate of injuries, including a major one to Mike Trout, continue to struggle, there is a chance (albeit a small and publicly downplayed one) that he will switch teams in a blockbuster trade in the next month.
Dreams of a non-red and white Ohtani are currently being fed solely by rumour, but that’s more than enough when Ohtani’s play is fueling the fire.
This week, Seattle businesses put up “Free Shohei” posters and sidewalk boards, and Ohtani’s every action, reaction, and word in a sea of all-stars became a read on the situation.
Beauty of All Star Game – The One & Only Ohtani
In the All-Star Game, which the National League won 3-2, he received the largest applause of any non-Mariners player during pregame introductions. The Seattle audience broke into an uninhibited, unsubtle chant before each of his at-bats.
Ohtani raised Seattleites’ hopes when he told reporters after the game that he visits the city throughout the offseason.
The other athletes who wore All-Star outfits this week weren’t allowed to be quite as forceful in their endorsements.
In the end, it’s impossible to penalise fans for cheating. First baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are widely speculated to be preparing an Ohtani chase, Freddie Freeman was mic’d up for the Fox broadcast during the chant, but he effortlessly reverted back to what appears to be the party line.
All 30 teams, he said, would like to have Shohei on their roster. Ohtani is in the midst of his third season of two-way uniqueness, and his fellow All-Stars have shown a degree of appreciation for his ability that verges on awe without any direct pleas.
Rookie Texas Rangers third baseman Josh Jung, who made the American League squad, said on Monday that if he could steal one skill from any player in baseball, it would be Ohtani’s power.
Ohtani’s sweeper is one of the most wanted pitches in baseball, according to Tampa Bay Rays ace Shane McClanahan, who may have to compete with Ohtani for the Cy Young Award.
The senior starter for the San Francisco Giants, Alex Cobb, who made his first All-Star team with a 2.91 ERA through 16 starts this season, has spoken highly of his former colleague, Ohtani, and provided an unusual rationale for why he would most like to face Ohtani in an exhibition game.
When asked about failure as a pitcher, Cobb stated, “There aren’t too many situations where it’s expected of you.” “But I just feel like he owns everybody so much that if he does whatever he does, it’s expected, but if you get him out, then you’re the hero there.”
On Tuesday, Zac Gallen, the NL’s starting pitcher and ace for the Arizona Diamondbacks, struck out Ohtani. According to his account, he was more concerned about immediate safety.
“I mean, you had this crowd, standing ovation, the place was going nuts,” Gallen recalled afterwards. As a result, “Man, if I serve up a homer to this guy, the place is going to erupt,” I thought to myself.
But that didn’t stop Gallen from appreciating his success right away.
He said, “I tossed it out,” referring to the ball that would eventually end up on his mantle. It’s likely that their first thought was, “What is this guy doing?”
By the way, in the fourth inning, Cobb did get a chance to face Ohtani. He told him to take a walk.
The awe of his peers for Ohtani’s exceptional brilliance will not fade. We won’t get a good stress test of Ohtani’s transcendence among fans until next year, when the All-Star Game is in Dallas. By default, he will have rejected 29 teams, some more obviously than others.
Will he destroy the wall that exists between pitchers and hitters, as well as the sport’s traditional tribal divisions?
One could interpret this as a comment on the Angels, a team that manages to include exceptional players but does not seriously challenge its competition. Perhaps that is the case, or perhaps that was the case all along.
Ohtani, though, suddenly seems to have the baseball world in the palm of his hand with his towering home runs, powerful splitters, and characteristic expressive body language.
Or, perhaps more appropriately, the baseball community as a whole holds him, in awe of a rare and wonderful phenomenon.
