From Ohtani-San to Mr. October

An interesting cultural development is the rise of the show-off slugger.

Here’s Shohei Ohtani, polite Japanese young man, demolishing a home run off Dylan Cease in April 2021:

And here’s Ohtani, strutting baseball star, demolishing a home run off Cease in the playoffs in October 2024:

In the old days, it was considered bad form to act like you knew you’d hit it out and stand at home, admire your blow, flip your bat, make weightlifter gestures, etc. For example, here’s Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth’s record in 1961 with his 61st homer.

Maris ran toward first as if he didn’t have plenty of experience that season to be able to judge when his fly ball was gone. That’s what you did back then: act modest and polite as if it came as a big surprise to you that your well-hit ball went out of the park.

I joked that Ohtani was turning into Mr. October, Reggie Jackson. But, actually, in Jackson’s three homer game to win the 1977 World Series for the Yankees, even he didn’t preen that much.

By the early 1980s, African American sluggers were showing off more. Here’s Gary Matthews in the 1983 NL Championship series with a bat flip that I recall as being surprising at the time:

I suspect the introduction of the batting helmet in the 1950s and its major improvements along with other batter armor over the decades made batters less fearful of showing off and getting knocked down for making the other team look bad.

As Heinlein said, “An armed society is a polite society."