Quick Saturday Thought on 53-53

There are a million mind-blowing Shohei Ohtani stats but I really love this one

Here at the Kansas City airport waiting for maintenance to repair whatever the heck is wrong with our flight home, and I came across a Shohei Ohtani stat that blew my mind …

Before getting there: We had such a great time at our WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL event last night. Shared the stage with the incredible David Von Drehle and Mitch Holthus, we talked all sorts of football, got to chat with so many incredible people including Hall of Fame kicker Jan Stenerud, it was really special.

Will be home for a day or so and then it’s off to St. Louis, San Francisco, Chicago and Pittsburgh! Hope to see you on the road.

And of course, would love if you picked up a copy of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL. The early response to the book has been so utterly incredible.

Hey, they’re calling our flight! I’ll write about Shohei on the plane!

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A brilliant reader — alas, I cannot find your email, so please take credit in the comments if you can — sent me an interesting tidbit on Shohei’s 50-50 season. He pointed out that not only is Ohtani the only 50-50 player in baseball history (also 49-49, 48-48, 47-47, etc) he’s one of only three players in baseball history to EVER, in their entire careers, hit 50 home runs in a season and also steal 50 bases in a season.

One of those is obviously Barry Bonds. He stole 52 bases as a 25-year-old in Pittsburgh back in 1990 (he was caught 13 times — a solid 80% percentage). And, of course, he hit 73 home runs in his pumped-up 2001 season.

The other is the less obvious, Brady Anderson, who stole 53 bases when we thought he was one kind of player in 1992, and he hit 50 home runs in 1996 when he pretty shockingly became another kind of player.

The third is Shohei this year.

Well, obviously, Ohtani isn’t stopping anytime soon. In the same 50-50 game, he became the game’s first 51-51 player, which took Brady Anderson out of the equation. That left only two players — Bonds and Ohtani — who have ever hit 51 home runs in a season and also have ever stolen 51 bases in a season.

Friday night, Ohtani hit another homer and stole another base to become the game’s first 52-52 player. Bonds’s stolen base peak was 52, which means that when Ohtani goes to 53-53, which I would expect him to do sometime today because that’s how he rolls, he will become the first player to ever hit 53 home runs in any season in his career and also steal 53 bases in any season in his career. Ever. It’s beyond remarkable.

Looking at it this way show you the extreme rarity of each achievement.

Here is a partial list of super-powerful sluggers who have never hit 53 homers in their careers:

• Henry Aaron (2nd all-time)

• Albert Pujols (4th)

• Willie Mays (6th)

• Jim Thome (8th)

• Frank Robinson (10th)

• Harmon Killebrew (12th)

• Rafael Palmeiro (13th)

• Reggie Jackson (14th)

Here is a partial list of speedy Hall of Famers who have never stole 53 bases in their careers:

• Henry Aaron

• Craig Biggio

• Rod Carew

• Frankie Frisch

• Derek Jeter

• Barry Larkin

• Willie Mays

• Tris Speaker

Thinking about it this way makes me even more gobsmacked by Shohei’s season.

Sometimes, to appreciate the breathtaking brilliance of something, it’s best to describe it as simply as you possibly can. What if someone had told you, even 25 years ago, that a 6-foot-4 Japanese baseball player wanted to come to America as both a pitcher and a hitter. That would have sounded like a movie along the lines of Little Big League or Angels in the Outfield or something.

That 6-foot-4 Japanese player came to America in 2018. That first year, he hit 22 home runs as a hitter and threw a pretty good 53 innings as a pitcher. Then he got hurt, but the combination of his hitting and pitching was amazing enough for voters to name him the Rookie of the Year. It all seemed like a cool but, yes, fleeting magic trick.

His second year, he didn’t pitch because of the injury. He hit 18 home runs in 106 games. Baseball fans mostly forgot about him.

His third year, a worldwide pandemic wrecked everything in its path including the baseball season. This Japanese player did try to take the mound again with fairly disastrous results — 8 walks and 7 runs allowed in fewer than two innings. He also hit just .190. The whole experiment, which was so unlikely in the first place, seemed over.

Then, in 2021, he hit 46 home runs, led the league in triples, drove in and scored 100 runs, and, in his spare time, he pitched 130 quality innings. There had never been a season quite like it. He was named unanimous MVP.

In 2022, he pitched even better — he finished fourth in the Cy Young voting after going 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA — and he also hit 34 home runs. He finished second in the MVP voting only because a gigantic Yankee, one of the most incredible hulks to ever play the game, mashed 62 home runs.

Then in 2023, this Japanese player led the league in home runs … and on-base percentage … and slugging percentage … and as a pitcher he went 10-5 with a 3.14 ERA … and he had a doubleheader where he threw a one-hit shutout in the first game and hit two home runs in the second. He actually had four games where he hit multiple homers. He also struck out the greatest hitter of the last decade to clinch a victory in something called the World Baseball Classic. He won the MVP again.

Unfortunately, he hurt his arm during the season and it was announced that he would have to take a break from pitching. This did not prevent a Hollywood team from paying him more money than any baseball player in the history of the game, money he happily put off for decades so that the team could afford other good players.

And then, this year, while unable to pitch, he chose to expand his offensive repertoire. He had never stolen 30 bases in a season. He decided to steal 52 and will likely steal more. He had led the league in home runs, but he had never gotten 50. He decided to hit 52 and will likely hit more. He had not yet come close to leading the league in RBI or runs, so he decided to lead the league in both.

And when this miracle of a player — who only a few years earlier would have been turned down by every Hollywood producer, including the Marvel people, as too unrealistic — was asked if he might actually come back and pitch in the playoffs, he just sort of smiled sheepishly.