Thursday night in Miami, the 1,339 loyal Marlins fans in attendance were privileged to witness the greatest single-game performance by any player in baseball’s three century history.
Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers super nova, went 6 for 6 with three home runs, two doubles, two steals, four runs scored and 10 RBIs. For non-baseball fans that’s like winning 10 Olympic gold medals in one night.
He also reached the plateau of 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season, another singular feat.
And all the while he found time to help the valets park cars.
His performance reminded me of my own greatest performance in baseball back before grass was invented. It was just great in a different way.
Playing shortstop for the Muntzel Nutmeats in the 3 and 2 League in Kansas City that summer, I made seven errors in one game. I also made two nice plays, but nobody but me remembers that. And I also got a rare hit, a bunt down the third base line that got stuck in the dust. My batting average that year was .091. Impossible you say, but not for an undersized kid with Coke bottle glasses it wasn’t.
My baseball career, except in my cloudy memory, was pretty much of a bust.
But I have excuses. In those days, the 50s of the last century, we didn’t have the coaches, the physical trainers, the metal bats, the giant gloves, the uniforms, batting gloves, the manicured fields or any of the perks today’s kids have.
Here’s what we did have: Louisville Sluggers made of real wood and tacked together and taped after they cracked, and baseballs held in shape with black electrical tape.
Our gloves also had hunks of tape on the ripped parts.
We were excited when we found rocks for bases. The temperature in the summers in the Midwest was always 100 plus, so our blue jeans and T-shirts were soaked in sweat and caked with dust. The closest water was in the kitchen faucet at home.
We mostly trained ourselves, though we didn’t have a clue what training was. We bounced a ball against a wall a thousand times a day. We threw the ball up in the air as high as we could and circled under it until it plopped into our gloves.
When it got too dark, we turned on the radio and listened to the games. Sometimes we even got on the street car and went to a game.
I’m just sayin’ that for us it was uphill both ways in neck deep snow. That’s a metaphor I think.
I couldn’t name the president of the United States in those days, but I could recite the baseball statistics of every team in the National and American leagues every day.
And of course, I had visions of a baseball career in my head. Fortunately, my dad made me go to college.
I won’t go into further details of Ohtani’s season because they are too incomprehensible. It’s 50 of these things, 50 of those things and 100 of some things nobody has ever seen before.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime baseball night and my friend Tom, a big fan, missed it by a hair. He went to the game the night before. On Friday, he had a three-martini lunch for breakfast.
