Shohei Ohtani: the two-way Japanese marvel with once-in-a-century talent

Major League Baseball’s most accomplished two-way player since Babe Ruth has become an avatar of hope, the latest best chance at rescuing a sport from cultural irrelevance

For all the talk of its absence from victorious athletes and preening coaches, fear is one of sports’ dominant forces. It isn’t called that, of course; it’s called strategy, a plan, the better part of valor. But it is why NFL teams trot out their punting units on fourth down more often than they should, why aces on the precipice of World Series wins get pulled. Why the most singular athletic talent in the world – an apple-cheeked 27-year-old who hits left-handed home runs that jostle geometry and throws right-handed pitches that blur and vanish – wasn’t allowed to let that talent shine in full before this season. “He’s proven this year [that when]given the opportunity to do two things, that you should listen to him,” Los Angeles Angels manager Joe Maddon said in May of Shohei Ohtani, Major League Baseball’s first legitimate dual threat in a century. “I don’t see any real reason to interfere a whole lot.”