I'm not. I assume every major athlete (pro, Olympic, NCAA basketball/football) is cheating these days, and if their numbers are off the charts they are *really* cheating.
The 'roids of the 90s in baseball and the 'roids in football going back to the '70s made me very suspicious. And when Hollywood actors started showing up after 3 months of working out going from normal to mega-buff it was undeniable to me the ease of cheating for people with the money and desire.
And yet people keep believing that X or Y player or team that pulled off some great feat aren't cheating. smh.
Even in 2017 many people (including Steve) were buying the Houston Astros b.s. argument that their tremendous season and offensive output at home was all due to a new study of "launch angles" for hitters. I called b.s. and was rewarded when they got exposed in a very sophisticated sign-stealing scandal. They cheated. (Still got to keep their W.S. win, natch. MLB is corrupt).
So Shohei's unbelievable numbers are just that: unbelievable. He's clearly on some kind of super-juice the tests haven't caught yet, or he's cheating in some other way. That gambling scandal by his manager is just the tip of the ice berg. The 50-50 club? Canseco was juiced to the gills when he was the first 40-40 man, but people are buying this guy can get to 50-50 without any cheating? And throw 100 mph?
I recall Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcgwire reveling in the adulation when they were both chasing Ruth's record and becoming national icons. Then a few years later they got exposed as just lousy cheats. Their unbelievable numbers were a product of cheating, not hard work.
Shohei will be exposed the same as well. Because his numbers are unbelievable for mortal men.
I was waiting for this post, Steve -- and you didn't waste any time.
A couple of points:
It's now arguable that Ohtani is the most talented, if not the most accomplished (i.e. in counting stats), baseball player of all time. Nobody else has been able to do as much as well as Shohei has.
It will be interesting to see what Ohtani tries to excel at next year. He'll have a nice fresh UCL graft, so my guess is he'll make it his goal to pitch a perfect game.
I have to admit, I completely misread your headline the first time I saw it 🤣
> So this year after signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he has merely been their DH.
It is worth noting that the Dodgers have only had full-time use of the DH since 2022, and that year they just used whoever wasn't in the field that day. Last year they used J.D. Martinez as their full-time DH, and he has since joined the New York Mets. The point being, if not for the NL adopting the DH, perhaps Shohei would not have signed with the Dodgers in the first place. In his MLB career he has played 8⅓ innings in the outfield, spread out over 7 games.
My guess would be that if a pitcher was out in right field, he'd tempted to unleash a 100 mph throw to home without being fully warmed up and might wreck his arm.
I think that's about right, and injuries diving for catches and running into outfield walls are possible, too.
Ohtani is surely physically talented enough to be a corner outfielder, but his injury risk would be raised quite a bit.
I wonder if when Ohtani's pitching the Dodgers' hitting coaches cover their eyes, and when he's batting/baserunning the pitching coaches take their turn . . . .
I felt really bad last year when Aaron Judge made a heroic catch crashing through the outfield fence in Dodger Stadium ... and missed 2 months because he busted his toe on this stupid 2 inch tall concrete lip Dodger Stadium has around the outfield. The Dodgers had 60 years to notice this problem and billions of dollars in revenue to fix it, but instead it messes up a peak season of one of the two best players.
The smartest rule MLB passed for Ohtani is adopting the NCAA rule that a pitcher could be his own DH. The implication of this rule is that even when Ohtani is removed from the mound, he can still DH for the rest of the game.
One other note: I just watched the highlights of the game, and saw that Ohtani was thrown out at third base trying to stretch one of his doubles into a triple. If he'd made it in time, he would have hit for the cycle plus two more home runs, which would surely be considered the greatest hitting game of all time. It's arguable this game qualifies anyway.
No, legally his name is Ōtani Shōhei, but Japanese tend to use western naming conventions when playing here, e.g. Suzuki Ichirō and Nomo Hideo. Conversely, the Chinese keep their names in the same order, e.g. Yao Ming and Sū Bǐngtiān.
It is interesting how history has repeated itself:
100 years ago:
Major scandals nearly kill off MLB: 1919 Black Sox scandal and other organized crime influences (baseball was as dirty as boxing back then)
then a homerun-belting pitching phenom athlete in a major media market (Babe Ruth) makes everyone forget about it as he does statistically unheard of impressive things.
Now:
Major scandals nearly kill off MLB: 2017 Astros stolen world series +kneeling
then a homerun-belting pitching phenom athlete in a major media market (Shohei Ohtani) makes everyone forget about it as he does statistically unheard of impressive things.
Jose's identical twin Ozzie had an MLB career of 24 games in which he hit no home runs. One doesn't have to be a geneticist to wonder if something is up.
I suspect other players had used them before. Pitcher Tom House said he tried them with Atlanta in the early 1970s. It appears steroids were being used in Olympic throwing sports like shot-putting in the mid-1950s, in college football by 1959, and pro football by 1963.
But baseball players didn't like to life weights.
But it's hard to see anything leap out of the statistics before Canseco, when you can start to see methodical patterns. A friend who is a baseball player's agent told me 30 years ago, "Jose Canseco was the Typhoid Mary of steroids," pointing to his trade from Oakland to Texas in 1992 as when the genie got out of its Oakland lamp and went baseball-wide.
I read a weightlifting book by Franco Columbu from the late 1970s or maybe early 1980s and he tells the story of getting turned on to lifting by a boxer. Back then your trainer would have been very angry to see you pick up a weight; you'll become musclebound! The boxer told him this was BS and that alls he knowed was when he started lifting he started winning.
Given the main motions of baseball are circular, I imagine the musclebound idea made weight training an even harder sell.
Rose was a dirt ball who openly cheated on his wife in smallish city Cincinnati. Ohtani is a fun, diverse, once a generation player. MLB will gladly let his lackey take the fall.
Need to put an asterisk next to the SBs. The rules only allow 2 pickoff attempts now, so once those are used, leads can be bigger. I’d like to see how many Ohtani SBs occurred after the 2 attempts.
True, but only the amazing Elly de la Cruz has more stolen bases than Ohtani this year, so you can't downgrade Ohtani for figuring out how to exploit the recent rule changes.
Ohtani appears to be a combination of Clark Kent-type physique (6'4" and probably around 225 pounds) and Japanese craftsmanship. Besides his physical gifts, he's figured out how to be All-World at hitting, pitching, and base-running, which is extraordinary. What's left? He starts at shortstop for the Dodgers from 31 to 40 and then plays catcher from 41 to 50?
Back in about 1970, George Blanda won the NFL MVP for playing backup quarterback and kicking the most valuable field goals. Ohtani is like somebody playing quarterback, placekicker, and returning kickoffs for touchdown.
The rules were changed to make base stealing easier. The clock on the pitcher and the limit on the number of pick off throws has made it easier to steal. And ball parks have been built to increase the number of home runs because that is what fans like to see compared to some earlier decades. Even Dodger Stadium was redesigned to lower the number of foul outs.
Pop fly foul outs are boring, so it's hardly remarkable that Dodger Stadium in recent decades has not as many foul outs as in the brief Koufax-Drysdale era of the 1960s.
My sports fan brother told me a story about Michael Jordan. At some point, maybe because of Magic Johnson, Jordan became obsessed with triple doubles. He would check in with the guys sitting at the table court-side (announcers? Stat keepers?) to determine what he had left to do to get the triple double that night.
Eventually his coach told the announcer guys to stop answering the question
The Dodgers have struggled against the Phillies this year, going 1-5. Having said that, they will still mostly likely get home-field advantage in the NLCS. If the dice roll their way, I think it would be good for baseball to have a Dodgers/Yankees World Series. A little over 40 years ago they met 3 times in a 5-year span, but not since then.
The steroids this guy is on must be out of this freaking world!
Sadly there is no Troll button on SubStack
He might be making a joke
I'm not. I assume every major athlete (pro, Olympic, NCAA basketball/football) is cheating these days, and if their numbers are off the charts they are *really* cheating.
The 'roids of the 90s in baseball and the 'roids in football going back to the '70s made me very suspicious. And when Hollywood actors started showing up after 3 months of working out going from normal to mega-buff it was undeniable to me the ease of cheating for people with the money and desire.
And yet people keep believing that X or Y player or team that pulled off some great feat aren't cheating. smh.
Even in 2017 many people (including Steve) were buying the Houston Astros b.s. argument that their tremendous season and offensive output at home was all due to a new study of "launch angles" for hitters. I called b.s. and was rewarded when they got exposed in a very sophisticated sign-stealing scandal. They cheated. (Still got to keep their W.S. win, natch. MLB is corrupt).
So Shohei's unbelievable numbers are just that: unbelievable. He's clearly on some kind of super-juice the tests haven't caught yet, or he's cheating in some other way. That gambling scandal by his manager is just the tip of the ice berg. The 50-50 club? Canseco was juiced to the gills when he was the first 40-40 man, but people are buying this guy can get to 50-50 without any cheating? And throw 100 mph?
I recall Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcgwire reveling in the adulation when they were both chasing Ruth's record and becoming national icons. Then a few years later they got exposed as just lousy cheats. Their unbelievable numbers were a product of cheating, not hard work.
Shohei will be exposed the same as well. Because his numbers are unbelievable for mortal men.
I was waiting for this post, Steve -- and you didn't waste any time.
A couple of points:
It's now arguable that Ohtani is the most talented, if not the most accomplished (i.e. in counting stats), baseball player of all time. Nobody else has been able to do as much as well as Shohei has.
It will be interesting to see what Ohtani tries to excel at next year. He'll have a nice fresh UCL graft, so my guess is he'll make it his goal to pitch a perfect game.
A generational talent. And a physical specimen.
Nah, he's cheating somehow.
> Baseball isn't hard enough for Shohei Ohtani
I have to admit, I completely misread your headline the first time I saw it 🤣
> So this year after signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he has merely been their DH.
It is worth noting that the Dodgers have only had full-time use of the DH since 2022, and that year they just used whoever wasn't in the field that day. Last year they used J.D. Martinez as their full-time DH, and he has since joined the New York Mets. The point being, if not for the NL adopting the DH, perhaps Shohei would not have signed with the Dodgers in the first place. In his MLB career he has played 8⅓ innings in the outfield, spread out over 7 games.
My guess would be that if a pitcher was out in right field, he'd tempted to unleash a 100 mph throw to home without being fully warmed up and might wreck his arm.
I think that's about right, and injuries diving for catches and running into outfield walls are possible, too.
Ohtani is surely physically talented enough to be a corner outfielder, but his injury risk would be raised quite a bit.
I wonder if when Ohtani's pitching the Dodgers' hitting coaches cover their eyes, and when he's batting/baserunning the pitching coaches take their turn . . . .
I felt really bad last year when Aaron Judge made a heroic catch crashing through the outfield fence in Dodger Stadium ... and missed 2 months because he busted his toe on this stupid 2 inch tall concrete lip Dodger Stadium has around the outfield. The Dodgers had 60 years to notice this problem and billions of dollars in revenue to fix it, but instead it messes up a peak season of one of the two best players.
Here's the video of Aaron Judge's catch breaking the bullpen gate in Dodger Stadium:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhBAzccW-Oc
I've been to Dodger Stadium more times than I can remember and never realized there was that stupid concrete curb around the outfield.
The smartest rule MLB passed for Ohtani is adopting the NCAA rule that a pitcher could be his own DH. The implication of this rule is that even when Ohtani is removed from the mound, he can still DH for the rest of the game.
One other note: I just watched the highlights of the game, and saw that Ohtani was thrown out at third base trying to stretch one of his doubles into a triple. If he'd made it in time, he would have hit for the cycle plus two more home runs, which would surely be considered the greatest hitting game of all time. It's arguable this game qualifies anyway.
Last home run was against a position player, so really a batting practice pitch. But still off the charts good in how hard he hits the ball!
Isn't his surname Shohei? He's ethnically Japanese. Did he have his name order reversed just for America?
No, legally his name is Ōtani Shōhei, but Japanese tend to use western naming conventions when playing here, e.g. Suzuki Ichirō and Nomo Hideo. Conversely, the Chinese keep their names in the same order, e.g. Yao Ming and Sū Bǐngtiān.
It is interesting how history has repeated itself:
100 years ago:
Major scandals nearly kill off MLB: 1919 Black Sox scandal and other organized crime influences (baseball was as dirty as boxing back then)
then a homerun-belting pitching phenom athlete in a major media market (Babe Ruth) makes everyone forget about it as he does statistically unheard of impressive things.
Now:
Major scandals nearly kill off MLB: 2017 Astros stolen world series +kneeling
then a homerun-belting pitching phenom athlete in a major media market (Shohei Ohtani) makes everyone forget about it as he does statistically unheard of impressive things.
Greatest ever. Unfathomable.
Unbelievable…
Was Canseco's 1988 season on or off steroids? Are you implying he and others juiced to beat it, or did he think he was untouchable afterwards?
Jose's identical twin Ozzie had an MLB career of 24 games in which he hit no home runs. One doesn't have to be a geneticist to wonder if something is up.
Jose kept touching his hair all through childhood.
So 1988 was proof of concept: weight training is good, and more is better.
Canseco wrote in his tell-all memoir "Juiced:"
“I introduced steroids into the big leagues back in 1985.”
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Jose-Canseco/
I suspect other players had used them before. Pitcher Tom House said he tried them with Atlanta in the early 1970s. It appears steroids were being used in Olympic throwing sports like shot-putting in the mid-1950s, in college football by 1959, and pro football by 1963.
But baseball players didn't like to life weights.
But it's hard to see anything leap out of the statistics before Canseco, when you can start to see methodical patterns. A friend who is a baseball player's agent told me 30 years ago, "Jose Canseco was the Typhoid Mary of steroids," pointing to his trade from Oakland to Texas in 1992 as when the genie got out of its Oakland lamp and went baseball-wide.
I read a weightlifting book by Franco Columbu from the late 1970s or maybe early 1980s and he tells the story of getting turned on to lifting by a boxer. Back then your trainer would have been very angry to see you pick up a weight; you'll become musclebound! The boxer told him this was BS and that alls he knowed was when he started lifting he started winning.
Given the main motions of baseball are circular, I imagine the musclebound idea made weight training an even harder sell.
Rose was a dirt ball who openly cheated on his wife in smallish city Cincinnati. Ohtani is a fun, diverse, once a generation player. MLB will gladly let his lackey take the fall.
Need to put an asterisk next to the SBs. The rules only allow 2 pickoff attempts now, so once those are used, leads can be bigger. I’d like to see how many Ohtani SBs occurred after the 2 attempts.
True, but only the amazing Elly de la Cruz has more stolen bases than Ohtani this year, so you can't downgrade Ohtani for figuring out how to exploit the recent rule changes.
Ohtani appears to be a combination of Clark Kent-type physique (6'4" and probably around 225 pounds) and Japanese craftsmanship. Besides his physical gifts, he's figured out how to be All-World at hitting, pitching, and base-running, which is extraordinary. What's left? He starts at shortstop for the Dodgers from 31 to 40 and then plays catcher from 41 to 50?
Back in about 1970, George Blanda won the NFL MVP for playing backup quarterback and kicking the most valuable field goals. Ohtani is like somebody playing quarterback, placekicker, and returning kickoffs for touchdown.
The rules were changed to make base stealing easier. The clock on the pitcher and the limit on the number of pick off throws has made it easier to steal. And ball parks have been built to increase the number of home runs because that is what fans like to see compared to some earlier decades. Even Dodger Stadium was redesigned to lower the number of foul outs.
Pop fly foul outs are boring, so it's hardly remarkable that Dodger Stadium in recent decades has not as many foul outs as in the brief Koufax-Drysdale era of the 1960s.
My sports fan brother told me a story about Michael Jordan. At some point, maybe because of Magic Johnson, Jordan became obsessed with triple doubles. He would check in with the guys sitting at the table court-side (announcers? Stat keepers?) to determine what he had left to do to get the triple double that night.
Eventually his coach told the announcer guys to stop answering the question
Probably not true since the teams have their own statisticians. And most players of that caliber have OCD and will remember exactly where they are at.
The Dodgers have struggled against the Phillies this year, going 1-5. Having said that, they will still mostly likely get home-field advantage in the NLCS. If the dice roll their way, I think it would be good for baseball to have a Dodgers/Yankees World Series. A little over 40 years ago they met 3 times in a 5-year span, but not since then.