If Cooperstown, N.Y., is the unofficial home of baseball mythology, Williamsport, Pa., is the safe house of baseball idyll. Here in our mind’s eye we perpetually keep baseball so pure and joyful that no fork in the road yet divides pitching and hitting. Here, at the home of the Little League World Series, where the talent range is as vast as the early-growth Gullivers to the dandelion-picking rightfielders is the last refuge of the original, unspecialized game.
Therein lies the magic of Shohei Ohtani, 23, the fresh-faced, lithe, two-way sprite of the Los Angeles Angels. He has become the biggest sensation in baseball in just his first two weeks in the majors.