The four words were first spoken here on a bright spring afternoon at Camelback Ranch, my astonished syllables joining similar tones of amazement floating from every corner of a crowded press box.
“Are you kidding me?”
Down to his last pitch in his first spring training game as a Dodger, Shohei Ohtani had just launched a two-run home run.
“Are you kidding me?”
The crowd gasped in disbelief at the perfect timing and wondrous theater, the four words reverberating around the stadium like an anthem to the unimaginable.
“Are you kidding me?”
Eight months later, Los Angeles asks that question still.
Was Shohei Ohtani’s first season as a Dodger really real? Was the best baseball player on the planet even better than that? Could the man with arguably the highest expectations in baseball history actually exceed them?
Read more: Shohei Ohtani unanimously wins his third MVP award, and first with the Dodgers
Yes, yes, and unbelievably, yes.
In being named the National League most valuable player on Thursday — becoming only the second player to win an MVP in both leagues — Ohtani completed a summer decorated with an even higher honor.
Most Valuable Season Ever By A Los Angeles Athlete.
This city has witnessed many memorable seasons by many legendary athletes, from Magic Johnson’s rookie year to Fernando Valenzuela’s rookie year to Sandy Koufax’s 1963 to Eric Dickerson’s 1984 to Shaquille O’Neal’s 2000.
But never before has one player during one season dominated the sport, transformed the town, awed the world and brought home a championship.
This was not a Dodgers town when Ohtani drove up the freeway from Anaheim this winter.
It is overwhelmingly a Dodgers town now.
His team was considered a bunch of underachievers before Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700-million contract.
His team is now World Series champions.
There was little international interest in the Dodgers before Ohtani brought his magical aura to Chavez Ravine.
The Dodgers are now the most popular baseball team in the world.
One man changed everything, an MVP of MVPs, the greatest Dodgers newcomer since Valenzuela, the greatest Dodgers season ever.
“It will be a special moment that I will never forget,” he said Thursday through an interpreter, after a special season that no one will ever forget.
He led the league with 54 home runs, 130 RBIs, a 1.036 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, and that doesn’t tell half of the story.
Ohtani was so impactful, he significantly and unselfishly improved the team before he even stepped on the field. By agreeing to annually defer all but $2 million of his contract, he gave Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman the financial flexibility to add other great players.
Without Ohtani’s generosity, Friedman might not have acquired Teoscar Hernández, Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Tyler Glasnow.
Ohtani was a giant before he was a giant.
Then the games started and here came those four words. You surely recognize them, because you’ve surely said them, time and again during a summer of dazzle.
“Are you kidding me?”
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His season began in controversy, as longtime interpreter Ippei Mizuhara admitted to stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani to support a gambling addiction.
The scandal was salacious. Ohtani was scrutinized. He was questioned. He was not believed. He finally was cleared, but only after his reputation was put through a wringer.
Yet through it all he kept swinging, slugging seven home runs with a 1.017 OPS in the first 32 games.
“Are you kidding me?”
As the summer progressed, he quietly got stronger and faster, smoothly making the transition to leadoff hitter and base stealer, hitting a dozen home runs in June, stealing a dozen bases in July, all while rehabbing a surgically repaired pitching shoulder.
“Are you kidding me?”
On Aug. 23 against the Tampa Bay Rays, needing one home run to become the sixth person in the 40-homer, 40-steal club, Ohtani did it with a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning.
“Are you kidding me?”
On his Aug. 28 bobblehead night, his dog, Decoy, delivered the first pitch in a sprint from the mound to the plate, then in the first inning Ohtani casually stepped up and homered.
“Are you kidding me?”
On Sept. 19 in Miami, on the verge of becoming the first member of the 50-50 club, Ohtani barged into the record books with arguably the greatest offensive game in baseball history, going six for six with three homers and two stolen bases.
“Are you kidding me?”
After consistently stating that he signed with the Dodgers to win a championship, on Oct. 5 he stared down the San Diego Padres in the third inning of his first playoff game and promptly hit a three-run home run.
“Are you kidding me?”
In the seventh inning of Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Yankees, he suffered a partial dislocation of his left shoulder on a slide into second. Even though the injury was serious enough to later require surgery, he insisted on playing the rest of the Series, and he did so with one arm, his left arm seemingly painfully stuck to his body. In those final three games he still managed a hit and drew a walk and forced the Yankees to account for his presence.
“Are you kidding me?”
This is not only Ohtani’s record third unanimous MVP, it’s the first one in history won by a player who didn’t play an inning in the field, and he acknowledged Thursday that his inability to pitch led to an increased offensive focus.
“My goal was to be able to pitch and contribute offensively and the fact that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pitch this season made me focus more on my offensive game,” he said. “Fortunately I was able to produce and get this award which is very humbling.”
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One wonders what he possibly can do for an encore, yet he’s already preparing for one, undergoing the shoulder surgery immediately after the season, his elbow rehab in full fling, his aim clear.
“The goal is to be ready for opening day,” he said. “That includes hitting and pitching.”
March 18, in Tokyo, against the Chicago Cubs, starting on the mound and batting leadoff … Shohei Ohtani!
“Are you kidding me?”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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