If you haven’t heard about Shohei Otani yet, you’ve missed out. The aptly dubbed “Japanese Babe Ruth” has been clocked at 102 mph with his fastball and hits home runs measured near 500 feet.
The 23-year-old right-handed throwing and left-handed hitting star is unprecedented in so many ways.
When’s the last time you saw an all-star hitter who was also an all-star pitcher?
Exactly.
But the way in which he might be most unprecedented is that according to almost everything in the public sphere of knowledge is that he does not care about money. In a sport with no salary cap, Otani’s would-be signing into Major League Baseball is one that would be heavily capped.