Greatest player ever? After Shohei Ohtani’s first World Series title, there’s a ‘legitimate argument’

Ohtani wrote of wanting to throw a baseball 99 mph — or 160 kph, as it’s measured in Japan — and become a top prospect. But another box seemed to encapsulate his mission:

“Have clear goals and purposes.”

Ohtani would eventually leave Hanamake Higashi and its somewhat rural confines in Iwate Prefecture, but he never stopped making goals. He wanted to play in Nippon Professional Baseball as a pitcher and a hitter. So he did.

He wanted to do the same in the major leagues, upending a century of conventional baseball wisdom. So he did.

He won two Most Valuable Player awards for the Dodgers and deferred $680 million of it for 10 years. And when a second Tommy John surgery left him unable to pitch this season, his first season in Los Angeles, he set a goal to be the first player in history to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases. He did that, too.

Shohei Ohtani tries out the new hardware! pic.twitter.com/QqCvz15F4L

— MLB (@MLB) heart-stopping 7-6 victory in Game 5. In the midst of a euphoric celebration, with Kendrick Lamar blasting and beer pooling into puddles on the floor of the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, Ohtani ran into Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations.

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When the Dodgers had recruited Ohtani to Los Angeles last winter, team chairman Mark Walter had mentioned the club’s checkered October past. The Dodgers had been the class of the sport for a decade but had just one World Series championship in 2020 to show for it. Walter labeled it “a failure.”

On Wednesday, as one championship became two, Ohtani had a message for Friedman.

“All right,” he said, “nine more, nine more.”

The “nine,” in this case, was World Series championships, which corresponded with the nine seasons that Ohtani has remaining on his Dodgers contract.

“In his first year, he won a championship,” Friedman said. “He’s like, ‘This is easy. We’re just gonna do it again nine more times.’”