For baseball fans: Shohei Ohtani just played the greatest game in baseball history

[Nevilledog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/10/18/shohei-ohtani-best-mlb-game-ever/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/Ev8XX

LOS ANGELES — This is Beethoven at a piano. This is Shakespeare with a quill. This is Michael Jordan in the Finals. This is Tiger Woods in Sunday red.

This is too good to be true, with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of the debate:

Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game, the most talented hitter and pitcher of an era in which data and nutrition have made an everyman’s sport a game for superhumans. And Friday night, when he helped his Los Angeles Dodgers win the pennant with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, was his Mona Lisa.

It’s hard to say when exactly the possibility of exaggeration around Ohtani evaporated. Maybe it was when he struck out the side in the top of the first, then hit a leadoff homer in the bottom of the inning, though that is almost banal by his standards.

*snip*

[LudwigPastorius]

1. ...and I didn't get to see it because I don't have cable.

I remember back when the ALCS & NLCS were on broadcast TV. Unfortunately, money ruined what should be available to all.

[Oeditpus Rex]

5. Same here, and it pisses me the fuck off

We've had MLB-TV for years and get to watch about 150 Dodgers games (or any others) for free. We don't get to watch the Great Rivalry games against the Giants because we're in the Bay Area cable market, so they're blacked out for non-cable subscribers.

As for the postseason, we got to watch two of the Wild Card games with Cincinnati because they were on the Fox broadcast channel. The rest of the NL postseason games were long ago sold to TBS. (They alternate every year. The 2026 NL postseasonn will be on regular Fox, which is broadcast, or Fox Sports 1, which requires cable.)

I grew up listening to baseball on radio, except forvthe nine Giants-Dodgers games at Doder Stadium. KTVU, then one of the best independent stations in tge country, broadcast them, while their "sister" station KTTV in Lis Angeles did the same for the nine games played at Candlestick Park. Then I got spoiled by (mostly) NBC-TV, broadcasting all postseason games over the air.

Then along came Big Cable to buy up all the broadcast rights and force us to pay about $130 per year or more to watch our club's games.

You'd think the cable monolith would offer just their baseball channel for like $10 per month instead of bundling it in with 150 channels, many of them for online shopping or cooking. Or that MLB-TV wouldn't have ended their postseason package for like $30 instead of selling out to Big Cable. Well, that's predatory capitalism for you.

(I know this post is kinda long. Obviously, I'm quite angrily passionate about this.)

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Well, I Know I'm Impressed!

3 for 3, with 3 homers. Struck out 10! Gave up 2 hits. We had more home runs than hits allowed.
He was the first pitcher in MLB ever to hit a lead off home run.
And, he did that after striking out the side in the top of the first.
One of his home runs went 470', after leaving the bat at 117mph.
I guess he got tired of people wondering if he was trying to do too much.

[Nevilledog]

3. He's amazing.

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. That's debatable

Last edited Sun Oct 19, 2025, 12:18 AM - Edit history (1)

You would've have to have seen -- and recall in detail -- every game in baseball history to make that call.

Yes, Ohtani did somethng last night that had never been done. That alone doesn't necessarily make it "the greatest game in baseball history." Off the top of my head, i can think of rwo other games that warrant that distinction.

Anyway, I've always been far more about the accomplishments of the ball club over the individual player -- except for Sandy Koufax when I was 10.

[Morbius]

6. I agree.

Here's a statement that's irrefutable, though:

On Friday night, Shohei Ohtani was a baseball God. Never before in the history of postseason baseball has a pitcher hit three home runs. Add that to a dominant performance on the mound? It's hail Shohei, no doubt.