00:00The history of Major League Baseball, go down the list, 367,
00:04all-time leading batting average for Ty Cobb, the 500-plus wins for Cy Young.
00:08We all know those records.
00:10Ricky Henderson, tremendous number, 1,400 stolen bases, the 762 by Bonds.
00:16You go and do all of that.
00:17However, let's do this and stop being romantic about the past of baseball
00:23when it comes to Shohei Otani.
00:25Dude, if Shohei Otani pitched during the era of Babe Ruth,
00:32he'd pitch a perfect game every outing.
00:36This guy's the greatest baseball player I've ever seen.
00:40This guy goes six and a third the other day, six strikeouts,
00:44and he looks like the best arm in baseball.
00:47What does he do a couple years ago?
00:49He creates a new catalog, and he creates a new area where in baseball
00:54you've got now a 50-home run hitter and a 50-stolen base guy.
00:58The only dude ever to do this.
00:59Before it was 30-30, then it was 40-40,
01:02and now you've got a guy who's on the mound throwing BBs at 102 miles an hour,
01:07and he turns around and he can hit a three-seam slider,
01:12and he hits him for 475 feet.
01:14I've never seen anything like this.
01:16Look, I think the best player I've ever seen is Barry Bonds.
01:19I covered the San Francisco Giants back in the day when I was out west,
01:24and I'm there on the flagship station,
01:26and Barry Bonds is the greatest player I've ever seen.
01:29But this dude here is now taking that seat.
01:32I've never seen anything like it.
01:34Shohei Otani, again, if he played in the era of Ruth,
01:39dude, do you know you have to speed up, you know,
01:41you have to speed up the clips that we see of Ruth
01:45because it took him about eight weeks to get around the base paths?
01:49Those guys were, like, smoking.
01:51Those guys were drinking.
01:52Those guys were never caring about the conditioning that they had.
01:56Come on, man.
01:57Plus, the diversity in the sport itself.
02:00I mean, it was a fat white guy drinking league back in the day
02:05that had no diversity in it.
02:07You put diversity in it,
02:09and now you put a guy like Otani back in that time?
02:13Come on, man.
02:14I know we talk about Babe Ruth.
02:16We talk about DiMaggio.
02:18We talk about all these guys.
02:20You put Joey Otani in any one of those eras,
02:23he's the best player in that era, and it ain't close.
02:26Remember something.
02:27When Babe Ruth was pitching for the Red Sox, right,
02:31he was a pitcher,
02:32but he really didn't hit until the final year when he was in Boston
02:36where he hit 29 home runs.
02:38Then he would hit 50 bombs his final season
02:40before he got traded to the Yankees in 23.
02:42Well, you know what?
02:44You put him in that era?
02:46Nobody's better than Otani.
02:48Otani's the greatest talent I've ever seen.
02:52There is nobody in the room.
02:54Stop with the past.
02:56Stop with the history.
02:58Look, Ted Williams and all those guys were tremendous baseball players.
03:01Tremendous.
03:02They were great for their era.
03:04This guy is a generational dude.
03:08This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that baseball has.
03:12You know, Stephen A. Smith said that a Japanese-born player
03:15could never be the face of Major League Baseball
03:18because he was born in another country.
03:21I'm like, what are you, nuts?
03:23This guy is appointment-setting television.
03:26Every time this dude toes the rubber or he's in the plate,
03:31I'm watching this guy.
03:32I stop what I'm doing because he's appointment-setting.
03:37This guy is every...
03:39And by the way, the Dodgers have now become the centerpiece
03:43in all of sports and baseball.
03:44That's the team you want to watch because Shohei Otani is on that team.
03:49Babe Ruth.
03:50Really?
03:51Nobody in their right mind could ever think that Babe Ruth
03:55is a better player than Shohei Otani.
03:58And I know, I get it.
04:00I get the conversation all the time.
04:02Well, guess what?
04:03Just like Bob Cousy, and you take a look at some of the guys
04:06that played a point today in the NBA,
04:08Bob Cousy was playing against plumbers, like J.J. Reddick says.
04:12J.J. Reddick's right.
04:15They're not the players that you see in today's game.
04:18The players care more about their health.
04:20They care more about their conditioning.
04:22Hey, if you want to throw shade on all that,
04:24I've never seen anything like Shohei Otani.
04:27Every single time we see him go on the mound,
04:31every time we see him at the plate,
04:34you think there's any coincidence
04:35that the television ratings were off the charts last year?
04:39Not just the fact that the Dodgers were making it happen,
04:42but us watching Otani.
04:44This guy's the best player of all time.
04:47I don't think there's any debate.
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