In Major League Baseball history, the players who achieved both 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season are legends of the game — names such as José Canseco, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez.

Including Shohei Ohtani, only six players have ever reached the “40–40” milestone.

Considering that roughly 20,000 players have appeared in Major League Baseball since the league’s origins in 1871, Ohtani’s accomplishment is extraordinarily rare.

And his later achievement of “50–50” — 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases — became something even more astonishing: effectively one player out of 20,000.

Ohtani had already produced many historic accomplishments before that.

For example, becoming a player with both double-digit wins as a pitcher and double-digit home runs as a hitter was an extraordinary feat — but in reality, the only meaningful comparison was Babe Ruth.

Even Ohtani himself often described his earlier records by saying there was “nothing to compare them to.”

When no one has ever done something before, measuring or evaluating the achievement becomes difficult.

That may be why “40–40” and especially “50–50” felt different to him.

Ohtani explained it this way:

“Until now, many of my records came in areas where very few people had ever done it before. In that sense, setting a new record among a larger group of comparable players feels different.”

As a two-way player, Ohtani had already established himself as a uniquely gifted baseball talent.

But by achieving “50–50,” he moved one step closer to becoming recognized not simply as a great two-way player, but as the best overall baseball player in the world.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese book published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

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