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https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/31743889/everybody-jaw-dropped-shohei-ohtani-teammates-share-their-best-stories-legendary-power
Shohei Ohtani's major league career was barely a month old, by which point his prodigious power, and the epic rounds of batting practice it produced, was still mostly legend on this side of the globe. Then the Los Angeles Angels visited the Colorado Rockies on May 8, 2018. It was a partly cloudy Tuesday afternoon in the upper 60s, and the ball was jumping off Ohtani's bat as he navigated through a BP session at Coors Field, a famed playpen for the sport's best power hitters. Momentum began to build, a crowd continued to swell, each ball seemed to travel longer than the one before it -- and then Ohtani unleashed what some consider the longest home run in the history of the sport's most hitter-friendly ballpark.
The baseball was driven to right-center with backspin, clearing the bullpen, then the first section of seats, then the concourse, then the second deck, then the third, ultimately smashing into the railing that lines the first of two rooftop sections at Coors Field, a place few, if any, have ever ventured.
"Everybody's jaw dropped," Angels hitting instructor Paul Sorrento said.
"It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen," said former teammate and current Arizona Diamondbacks right fielder Kole Calhoun. "Ever."
Ohtani has barely taken batting practice on the field this year, opting to do most of his pregame hitting in indoor cages as a way to conserve energy for a full season as a two-way player. But those who spent time around him over these past three years believe his BP power displays are without precedent. And many of them have spent these past few weeks thinking back to that unforgettable home run as a preview of what's to come on Monday, when Ohtani headlines the Home Run Derby lineup from Coors Field.
"I'm saying it now: If you haven't seen him take BP, watch him in the Home Run Derby, because it's gonna be a show," Angels center fielder Mike Trout said. "He can hit, line to line, stupid power. To see him hit in Colorado, obviously with them balls, during the derby, it's gonna be must-see TV."
Ohtani still leads the majors with 5.3 FanGraphs wins above replacement. Through his first 81 games, he boasts a 3.49 ERA with 87 strikeouts in 67 innings as a pitcher and a .279/.364/.700 slash line with 12 stolen bases and a major league-leading 32 home runs in 330 plate appearances as a hitter. Before Ohtani, only five players had recorded at least one strikeout in a season when they accumulated 30-plus home runs. Nobody had more than four. In Babe Ruth's only season as a traditional two-way player, in 1919, he hit 29 home runs and struck out 30 batters, a total Ohtani has already almost tripled.
"There's not been one name mentioned, other than his, to compare Shohei to," Angels manager Joe Maddon said. "I think that just screams what this is all about. We all romanticize what it would have been like to watch Babe Ruth play. 'He pitched, really?' ... I mean you hear this stuff, and it's a larger-than-life thought or concept. Now we're living it, so don't underestimate what we're seeing. We always romanticize the past, and sometimes you miss what's going on right in front of your eyes."
The essence of what makes Ohtani so unique, what makes him unlike any player in Major League Baseball's prolonged history, exists in a macro sense. He throws hard, but plenty of others do too. His sprint speed is elite but certainly not unparalleled. His splitter acts as a devastating put-away pitch, but the game's best pitchers all featured at least one of those. He boasts an advanced feel in the batter's box, but others have been better. It's the combination of all those skills, on full display through the first three-plus months of this season, that place Ohtani in a class of his own.
But if there's a singular tool that sets him apart similarly, it's his power.
"I've been around a lot of good players, and I've never seen this," said Sorrento, who played into the late 1990s alongside the likes of Jim Thome, Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez.
"He's probably one of the most explosive hitters I've ever seen," Calhoun, Trout's longtime throwing partner, said of Ohtani. "The way that he generates power by loading into his back hip as he's still going forward, the stretch that he gets and then being able to unleash that -- people can't do that consistently. At times, you'll see with a lot of hitters that homers come in bunches, and it comes and goes. But he's had it all year long, and it's repeatable."
Ohtani's home runs are an unmatched combination of loud and long and towering. His 14 home runs with a launch angle of 30 degrees or higher lead the majors. But so do his 15 home runs with an exit velocity of 110 mph or faster. And so do his 14 home runs traveling at least 425 feet.
And yet none of that compares to his batting practice.
Sorrento called those sessions "stupid." Matt Shoemaker, a former teammate and current pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, described it as "an absolute joke." Tommy La Stella, the San Francisco Giants infielder who is in his eighth major league season, said it's "the most power I've ever been around."
Angels starter Andrew Heaney cut through all of that.
"The ball f---ing flies," he said. "The only way to tell people is to just f---ing watch on Monday."
Everybody seems to be able to identify their favorite Ohtani homers.
For La Stella, Shoemaker and Jared Walsh, the Angels first baseman who will join Ohtani in the All-Star Game, they are the BP moon shots that cleared the center-field batter's eye at Target Field in Minneapolis, RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland, California, and Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, respectively. For several other people with the Angels, they are the balls that Ohtani routinely hits into the tunnels that are tucked within the first section of Angel Stadium seats in deep right field -- in the area where Barry Bonds deposited a mesmerizing home run during the 2002 World Series.
For those who followed him in Japan, one moment sticks out above the rest: Nov. 13, 2016, during an exhibition game for the World Baseball Classic, when Ohtani hit a baseball so high and so far that it disappeared inside the Tokyo Dome roof. The ball is now displayed at the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, which resides within the stadium itself. It traveled an estimated 150 meters (492 feet) and was scored a ground-rule double.
In the United States, Ohtani's Coors Field homer has taken on a similar mythology.
Ohtani will return there for Monday's Home Run Derby, competing against Juan Soto, Joey Gallo, Trevor Story, Pete Alonso, Matt Olson, Trey Mancini and Salvador Perez in a timed, bracket-style competition (8 p.m. ET. on ESPN). It's a field loaded with power hitters, but many of those who have seen Ohtani up close consider him the prohibitive favorite -- and that home run, from 38 months ago, serves as principal validation.
Calhoun considered the trajectory, brought up how much harder the Home Run Derby baseballs will be and thought that if Ohtani could hit balls that hard down the right-field line, he might just clear Coors Field entirely next week, an unprecedented achievement.
Trout volunteered the same thought.
"I can't imagine, with these balls for the derby -- he might leave the stadium," Trout said. "I'm being serious."
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"though time has passed, im still the future" (c) black thought
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