Was Shohei Ohtani Just a Dream?
Even now, a month later, it has the quality of a dream. In the second game of a doubleheader, the pitcher from the day’s first game stands in the batter’s box. He is a right-handed hurler, perhaps the most unhittable pitcher in baseball. And he is a left-handed slugger, the league leader in home runs. He is tall, six feet four, but ideally proportioned—baseball’s Vitruvian Man. He is nearing thirty but seems ageless; his face is as smooth as his swing.In the day’s first game, his outing on the mound had ended early, after an inning and a third—his velocity was down, the shape of his pitches not quite right. He still struck out two and crushed a four-hundred-and-forty-two-foot home run, his forty-fourth of the season. Now, in the fifth inning of the nightcap, he settles into his stance. Th...