In the movie “The Sandlot”, the children in the film find themselves faced with the dilemma of having lost a baseball signed by Babe Ruth. One of the film’s co-stars who doesn’t know much about baseball has no idea who Babe Ruth was. Until his friends remind him that he is considered the greatest baseball player of all time.
“The Big Bambino.” “The Sultan of Swat.” “The colossus of weight”. These are the nicknames that Babe Ruth was known by and since he retired, he has been considered the greatest of all time. Shohei Ohtani now plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers and already helped them win another World Series title in his first year with the team last season.
The Dodgers return to the Fall Classic after eliminating the Milwaukee Brewers in four straight games. After six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani started Game 4 of the National League Championship Series and, not only in my opinion, but probably in many others, produced the greatest single-game performance in professional baseball history.
Even the great Babe Ruth couldn’t match what Ohtani did on Friday, October 17 in front of thousands of Dodgers faithful. His performance was legendary, historic and downright mind-boggling. Sent to the mound as a starter, Ohtani also led the Los Angeles batting order. With four plate appearances, all the Japanese import did was hit three homers and be walked once. One of his dingers was said to have traveled nearly 500 feet. It wasn’t just a home run, it was a real home run.
Ohtani’s line score is absolutely incredible. Four times, walked once, three hits, all three back and forth. All three round trippers were single shots, so based on his stats, it was a night of three offensively. Three at-bats, three hits, three runs, three RBIs and three big home runs. But that’s not what made his evening special.
From the mound, Shohei Ohtani pitched six complete innings. He’s only given up two hits and three walks, but it’s his strikeout total that’s alarming. Ohtani struck out 10 Brewers batters. Ten! It’s crazy. Out of 22 of his throws, 12 of them were a first pitch.
Breaking it down further, the batters Ohtani faced had 14 pitches called strikes, another 19 he whiffed on, 24 fell on foul balls for a strike and nine others were strikes in play. Ohtani struck out three times on ground balls and four more batters that flew out. So when comparing Ohtani to George Herman Ruth, how do the two players’ stats line up? It’s time to find out.
So far, Shohei Ohtani has seven seasons under his belt and is in his eighth. Comparing his first eight seasons to Babe Ruth’s first eight, one must keep in mind that for most of his first eight seasons, Babe Ruth was primarily just a pitcher. Offensively though, the number of games each player appeared in over the first eight seasons of both athletes’ careers isn’t far off.
Ruth has played 113 games and Ohtani 127. The current superstar leads in every category. Known as a home run hitter, Babe Ruth held the career record for a very long time until Hank Aaron surpassed his 714. So far in eight seasons, Ohtani has hit a total of 280 while Ruth in his first eight hit only 46. But he was a pitcher first. Ruth had 143 RBIs and the Japanese import had 669. What might be a better indicator is what their season averages were and are.
During his 22 years in Major League Baseball, Babe Ruth averaged 32 home runs per season. Ohtani? 35. Ruth outscored Dodgers star in RBIs 101-84. But Shohei Ohtani is a much better athlete than Babe Ruth. Ruth is well known for his antics off the field and for being very outgoing, but on the field he simply knew how to throw and hit. Ohtani, with his physical skills, has averaged 24 doubles per season in his career thus far, averaging 16 triples over a 162-game schedule. Ruth’s numbers in these two categories were 23 and six.
Both players average the same number of hits per season, 131. Ohtani averaged 21 stolen bases per season while Ruth only managed six. Proof of Babe Ruth’s hitting skill, he struck out per season at an average rate of only 60, where the current Stallion averages 138. Babe Ruth crossed the plate more often than Ohtani, bettering him by 10, 99-89. Ruth also walked a lot more 94-68.
Getting back to the mound, given Ohtani’s incredible performance in this just-concluded championship series, we have to remember that he pitched far less in his first eight seasons than Ruth did in his first eight. His pitching power is most evident by the number of strikeouts he averages per season. This number is 84, compared to 61 for Ruth.
From the mound, Babe Ruth finished his career with a 92-46 record. Ohtani is 39-20 years old. These numbers equate to a winning percentage for the Babe of 0.666. For Ohtani, that number is 0.661. Complete games and shutouts are a thing of the past, so Shohei Ohtani has few of those, besides Babe Ruth? 105 and 17 respectively. Babe Ruth has only given up 10 home runs in his pitching career, while Ohtani has given up far more with 56.
We could go over these numbers all day and talk more about them, but this discussion comes down to more of a subjective opinion. Alumni may look to Ruth because of his legendary accomplishments, including the legendary World Series home run that called his shot before hitting it out of the park. His popularity and impact on baseball may be greater than that of today’s Ruthonian, known as Shohei Ohtani, but the Dodgers super star is quickly becoming a legend in his own right.
There is no doubt that while Babe Ruth is not the greatest of all time, Ohtani is quickly accomplishing things that will help him surpass anything Ruth has done on the field and by far he has already surpassed great players like Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Willie Mays and more current players like Barry Bonds, the all-time home run king. Ohtani gets the nod because he is a two-way player who throws, fields and hits. And he does it in a remarkable way. For this, in my opinion, he has surpassed Babe Ruth as the greatest of all time and he is far from retiring from the sport in which he excels.
When all is said and done and Shohei Ohtani has played his last game, it’s scary to think what his numbers will look like.
