SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Shohei Ohtani has now accomplished something that no other player in baseball history has ever done.
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JOE DAVIS: On the one-two, Ohtani sends one in the air - the other way. (Yelling) Back it goes. Gone.
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DAVIS: Shohei Ohtani starts the 50-50 club.
DETROW: Fifty home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season- the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar set the new milestone this week. Joining us here to discuss it all is writer Molly Knight, who covers baseball at her Substack, "The Long Game." Welcome.
MOLLY KNIGHT: Hi. Thanks for having me.
DETROW: I want to start with two big questions. First of all, how do you quantify just how special and unique 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases is?
KNIGHT: It's just absurd because someone strong enough to hit 50 home runs should not be as fast enough to steal 50 bases. Like, normally, those two things are diametrically opposed to each other. I don't think any of us ever thought we would see this. I think it's akin to Roger Bannister breaking the 4r-minute mile back in the '50s.
DETROW: Wow. That was the second question. Do you ever feel like you have a hard time fully describing what is going on with Ohtani? Do you feel like the words are not just quite capturing...
KNIGHT: Yeah.
DETROW: ...The unique situation he has?
KNIGHT: Yeah, absolutely - 'cause how many different ways can you call someone a unicorn, an alien from outer space, not human? After a while, you know, setting the records we're talking about - he went 50-50. He also broke the Dodgers' single-season home-run record. I mean, this guy is just, like - you just run out of words.
DETROW: Yeah. One of the things - for all the records that Babe Ruth had - and, of course, he's the other example of somebody who, for a while, was a great pitcher and a great hitter at the same time - it was that gap between him and everybody else.
KNIGHT: Yeah.
DETROW: It doesn't seem as quite that level because that was truly freakish, but it feels like, like, how do you put the gap between Shohei Ohtani and the rest of Major League Baseball?
KNIGHT: Well, let's not forget, Babe Ruth, who's incredible and would be a superstar today - I mean, he was playing pre-integration. So he was playing against a lot of guys who would not be in the big leagues today. I think the competition's never been better. He was not having to face pitchers throwing 98 miles per hour every time he batted. No one did that - not to take it away from Babe Ruth.
But I think what we're seeing with Ohtani is he's showing the world. There's some 8-year-old boy somewhere in Japan or Venezuela or Alabama or whatever who's seeing this and thinking, I can do this, too; I can hit and pitch, or I could hit home runs and steal bases. I just think it's an incredible, incredible situation that helps the imagination of everybody who loves this sport.
DETROW: The Dodgers have clinched a playoff spot now, and there's two contexts going into October. One is the fact that the Dodgers, even though they got a title in 2020, have historically been great lately, and then the playoffs go awry. But more important than that, Shohei Ohtani has never played in the playoffs. You wrote that...
KNIGHT: Never.
DETROW: ...He has played more games than anybody who has yet to appear in a post-season, which is tragic.
KNIGHT: Yeah. I was shocked when I saw that stat. He is currently the player, the MLB player with the most regular-season games who has never played in October, which is just insane to me and horrible because he's probably the greatest player who ever lived. And I think we can - the Dodgers have had their woes. I mean, most of that is down to starting pitching, although last year, they got eliminated because Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman didn't do anything in the NLDS.
So Ohtani's going to have a lot of pressure on him - make no mistake. People are going to want to - people love to build up and tear you down. If he goes 0 for 12 or whatever in the NLDS, he's never going to hear the end of it. But I think the way that he was able to reach this 50-50 with all that pressure on him, I think it bodes pretty well. I think he puts as much pressure on himself than anybody else can, and I expect him to have a big October.
DETROW: Big October after a historic season. That's Molly Knight. You can read more of her coverage on her Substack page called "The Long Game." Thank you so much.
KNIGHT: Anytime.
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