Coral Gables, Fla. (VIP-WIRE). My admired Shohei: I love you and admire you. They say you’re a better ballplayer than I was. Let’s not worry about it. In my bigleaguer years, 1914-1935, I heard many times that others were better than me, especially Lou Gehrig, and I never worried about it.
Now, the truth is, it seems to me that you are better than me, because you run the bases very well and I could never do that successfully.
From this More Here, where I have been since 1948, I admire you with emotion, because there has never been a player like you. And the most interesting thing, since 2018, when you came to the Major Leagues aboard the Angels, you have surpassed yourself year after year.
Too bad your team hasn’t made it to the World Series in these four seasons, because I look forward to seeing you at the ball in October.
How well have you penetrated in the Major Leagues, who call you the show of the moment! That is, “Show Time”. Newspapers and magazines play with your name and write “Sho-Time”. Sho for Shohei, of course.
You are the show of the moment. Too bad this unnecessary lockout has prostrated you in the world of the inactive, depriving us all of enjoying you.
In Baseball America magazine they describe you as “crazy, incredible and different” and they say that you “exceeded the limits”. Well, it’s just that in 2021, you hit 46 home runs, hit eight triples, and pitched in nine game wins. You still had time to steal 26 bases and give up 156 batters for strikeouts, while only reaching 44 on balls in 130 1/3 innings.
Shohei: You pitch and you’re a sluger at the same time. I was pitching in my early years and then I was just hitting and fielding outfield. That’s why I insist, you are better than everyone, even myself. Sure!
My followers will insist that my greatest merit has been that I was the first with remarkable power. Well, that’s true, but we are already close to 90 years since my retirement, and there has never been anyone with such powers.
You also earn me in fees. This year you’re signed for $5.55 million, but starting in 2023, your agents, CAA Sports, can get you close to $40 million a year. My biggest salaries were $80,000 in 1930 and 1931, when I was being attacked for making more than the president, Herbert Hoover. That’s when I replied: Sure! Because last year I had a better season than him!
God bless you, Shohei. And I’ll keep that arm, those legs and that power, so that you continue to amaze baseball people… “Babe”.-
Thanks to life that has given me so much, even a reader like you.
#letter #Babe #Ruth #Shohei #Ohtani