When we last left off, I was hoping to exercise some emotional demons in Miami upon my first visit to the Magic City since an ill-fated trip in July 2021. What transpired is too big for a single essay, so we will discuss what everyone has spent the last few days asking me about.
Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words and in the picture above, you have the exact moment of contact on a history-making swing.
As I have said repeatedly here, there, and everywhere in the past few days, there is a Forrest Gumpian quality to my life. Once I started to embrace the weirdness, and the absence of normality, a lot of my anxiety resolved itself.
I am fond of saying that you never know what you will see at the ballpark, but what Shohei Ohtani did was absolutely ridiculous, beyond the wildest dreams of baseball avarice.
Even with all the surrealness surrounding my life, I was initially at a loss to the madness, the glory, the sheer impossibility of what I witnessed firsthand in Miami on Thursday evening...for three minutes.
The facility had terrible Wi-Fi, as everyone was trying to do the same thing, as I had captured the home run, the reaction, and the curtain call into a single Tweet.
I hooted, hollered, and literally and figuratively threw my own shoulder out patting myself on the back for being right yet again this season. In a game where the impossible kept occurring, I saw a man literally transcend the limit of sport and could feel nothing but awe, gratitude, and joy.
Then, I was absolutely insufferable for being right again...for five minutes.
Ohtani did not just establish the 50-50 club; he made his own V.I.P. section in a singular performance that has not been done before and quite possibly again in the 155-year history of professional baseball in the United States. Then he homered again, which I caught the aftermath of.
What was the game like? I have the unique distinction of seeing Clayton Kershaw be perfect for fourteen consecutive innings and what I saw on Thursday makes that feat seem like an afterthought.
What was being in the room when Vincent van Gogh finished "A Starry Night" like? What was it like watching Johnny Vander Meer throw consecutive no-hitters? What was it like watching Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a single game? What was it like watching Roger Bannister run a four-minute mile?
Eric scratched at the surface of the superlatives about Thursday's game. Words fail as I should have been a poet.
I scribbled down what words that conveyed the electricity that I felt at the moment. Words that seem inadequate now, especially with the backdrop of ongoing, ever-present grief about my departed father, whose death occurred one year and a day as to the accomplishment.
"I have never seen anything like what I just saw, what I felt tonight. I may never see anything like it again. This strange wild man, a fan of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure may be the greatest baseball player who ever lived. And I got to bear witness to arguably his finest hour."
We watched something that literally had not happened before. I had a literal and figurative front-row seat to the peak of human achievement. Almost as afterthoughts, Ohtani missed hitting for the cycle by about six inches and clinched a playoff spot for the first time in his career.
The home plate umpire stalled so fans and Ohtani could enjoy the moment.
Ohtani got a curtain call on the road.
loanDepot Park allegedly had around 15,548 in paid attendance, and I would wager that there were maybe 10,000 people there who screamed as loud as any crowd I have ever heard in over 100 games attended in 26 stadiums.
If you were not there and you did not experience this happening live, I can only give you a glimmer of what it was like, even though I will do my level best in the attempt.
We have seen bits and pieces of what Ohtani did on Thursday in individual careers, but not in a single career, and certainly not in a single freaking day. Words genuinely fail; not since SNL-James Lipton came up with scrumtrilescent has the English language lacked the necessary tools to describe what we all saw.
Dorktown has an excellent breakdown of how Ohtani broke baseball on Thursday and the performances deserves, nay demands, your respect and attention.
I wanted the home run portion of the milestone broken in Atlanta because loanDepot Park is a bit of a hole with garish lighting. I did not want to deal with the mad scrum that would follow Ohtani's 50th home run.
Reporting indicates that the ball could be sold for up to $500,000. It was a premarked ball and Marlins security escorted the lucky. currently unidentified fan from the stadium. Said fan has reportedly turned down a cash offer of $300,000 from the Dodgers to get the ball back. Currently, the Dodgers will have to settle for an incomplete showcase of Ohtani's achievements.
Also, the Dodgers would not be acting in character unless they were to squeeze every last cent out of the fans because of the achievement. On Monday, for one night only, the team sold a 50-50 Club Combo with loaded chicken katsu sliders and goat cheese fries for $20.24.
With everything that has happened, with every prediction (but one) coming to pass, I feel like a mad prophet, utterly unprepared to have my thoughts manifest into reality. Leaving aside the profound implications of this train of thought, for now, let us examine the aftermath of those who had to talk about this event for a living.
Even Joe Davis and Tim Neverett, who had excellent calls of the moment that I did not get to enjoy until much after the game, were at a loss to describe what they just saw and they get paid to do this work for a living.
As for me, I walk that line between "serious journalist" and "serious fan" as I travel to ballparks to watch Dodger games. The most apt description of what I have experienced since the game can be compared to a story that legendary voice actor Kevin Conroy had in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks when he was asked, upon being recognized, what it was like to Santa Claus?
Every time someone acknowledged my Dodger cap, they would say "Heck of a game last night/Thursday," and I would respond with "I know, I was there." When everyone expressed skepticism and shock, I'd whip out my phone, show the video, and try to discuss the wondrous day we covered here. I spread joy and it was intoxicating.
Then on the plane ride home, I informed folks Ohtani had made it to 52-52 as this train, which will likely stop at 55-55, continues.
I did not want to leave the ballpark that night, hoping beyond hope to run into Ohtani as I lingered after purchasing tangible proof that I was at that night's ballgame. I must have missed him or he out-waited me as some of the annoying locals were sapping my joy.
All that is left to do is get some lucite to hold my ticket and finish these reports. In the end, there is likely only one thing to say to Shohei Ohtani:
Ōtani-san, omedetōgozaimasu! (Congratulations, Shohei Ohtani!)