Babe Ruth. Michael Jordan. Muhammad Ali. Tiger Woods. All of these athletes have the elusive membership to the “Greatest of All Time” club. Shohei Ohtani, meanwhile, is currently filling out his membership paperwork as we speak. How did he get here? Well, it wasn’t a straightforward road, and it doesn’t all have to do with baseball.
Ohtani, 31, comes from Japan, home of some of the greatest athletes to ever make their mark in American professional sports. He followed in the footsteps of legendary Japanese baseball players such as Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki and Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese-born player to appear in Major League Baseball
Ohtani was born to play baseball. He clung to the sport at an early age and easily could have played at any of Japan’s powerhouse high school programs in the big cities, but he chose to stay at his hometown school.
It was around this time that international baseball scouts began hearing about a young phenom flame-thrower out of Japan. Ohtani began his professional career in Nippon Professional Baseball, playing for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, where he dominated night after night.
Then it happened: Ohtani announced his intentions to be posted to sign with an MLB team. Naturally, many teams pursued the young star, and the Los Angeles Angels landed the grand prize. Initially, the signing was viewed as a risk due to Ohtani’s UCL sprain in his right elbow — his pitching arm.
It ended up being only a minor setback. Ohtani excelled among all rookies during the 2018 season, both on the mound and at the plate, earning him the American League Rookie of the Year award. One could say that the Angles, of all teams, had found the 21st century’s Babe Ruth.
It only went up from there. In his eight years of MLB service, Ohtani has been the face of baseball: five All-Star selections, three MVPs, an NLCS MVP, and the then-highest-paying contract in professional sports history. His switch to the Los Angeles Dodgers was the key to his global superstardom.
Since 2023, his jersey has been the top-selling one in all of baseball. He is known around the world and is constantly mentioned in “greatest of all time” conversations. This is why Shohei Ohtani transcends sports.
The fact that we’re seeing an athlete breaking and setting records left and right, performing at an elite level game after game, is incredible. There really hasn’t been a baseball player who possesses this kind of dual greatness since Babe Ruth.
Off the field, things haven’t been as squeaky clean. Ohtani was involved in a gambling scandal in 2024 that centered around his former translator, Ippei Mizuhara. Ohtani said he was not involved in any of Mizuhara’s dealings, though it was later discovered that the money in question came from accounts connected to Ohtani. Mizuhara has since been convicted, and Ohtani has continued to play uninterrupted baseball.
Even something like this will hardly affect the rest of Ohtani’s career. He will have statues built in his honor, a plaque in Cooperstown, and maybe even an award named after him. Shohei Ohtani’s greatness can’t be denied.
