IT WAS SHO TIME LAST NIGHT

 Shohei Ohtani just played the greatest game in baseball history.  To quote MSNBC:

This is Beethoven at a piano. This is Shakespeare with a quill. This is Michael Jordan in the Finals. This is Tiger Woods in Sunday red. 

This is too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of the debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game, the most talented hitter and pitcher of an era in which data and nutrition have made an everyman’s sport a game for superhumans. And Friday night, when he helped his Los Angeles Dodgers win the pennant with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, was his Mona Lisa.

How was this for a beginning?  In the top of the first inning, he struck out the side, then led off the bottom with a home run. When he hit his second homer, where the ball traveled 469 feet in the fourth inning, he had more hits than the entire Milwaukee team.  Oh, also by this inning, he had scored more runs than the Brewers in games 1 and 2 combined.

That was not all.   Pitched six innings, giving up 2 hits, walking 3, striking out 10 and allowing no runs. In the seventh he hit his third homer.

The TBS crew of Pedro Martinez, Curtis Granderson, Jimmy Rollins and Adam Lefkoe reaction to Shohei's all-time performance.  Here is another view of Game 4 of the 2025 National League Championship Series arguing that what Ohtani did was the greatest game ever played by any baseball player.  In fact, an argument is made that this is the best of anyone in any sport.  Another commentary.

Watch highlights of also a pretty good hitting game he had last year:  6 for 6, 3 homers, 2 stolen bases and 10 runs batted in.  He also made it into the 50 homers and 50 stolen bases club as the only member.  Shohei ended up with 51of both.

So end of discussion about who is the best, Babe Ruth vs Shohei Ohtani.  How does Shohei's performance compare with other sporting events?  Among the feats mostly mentioned as tops include:

• Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game for the Philadelphia Warriors on 2March1962.  
• The score ended up 169-147 over the NewYork Knicks.  
• The highest-scoring NBA game, between the Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets, came in a 1983 triple-overtime game, 186-184, with Pistons prevailing.
• Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in 2006.

• 
  In Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan arrived with the flu, but he nevertheless had 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists and a block for the Chicago Bulls over the Utah Jazz.
• A memorable accomplishment was Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter in 1970.  No such game this past season, but there have previously been 326 no-hitters, so what's the big deal?  He didn't think he was going to pitch, so took recreational LSD earlier in the day.
• Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburg Pirates threw a perfect game for 12 innings...but still lost... in the 13th inning.

• 
  Kerry Wood had 20 strikeouts for the Chicago Cubs in 1998.  Yes, Roger Clemens struck out 20 twice for the Boston Red Sox in 1986 and 1996, but these were set before players were checked for steroids.

• 
  Don Larsen pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees in the 5th game of the 1956 World Series.
• Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, hit three home runs on three pitches for the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series over the Dodgers, clinching the championship.

• 
  In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Usain Bolt set the world record in the 100-meter dash in 9.69 seconds.  He later lowered the record to 9.58 seconds, but said that with the carbon-plated "super spikes" used today by sprinters, he would have made it in 9.42 seconds.

• 
  In the 1995 Super Bowl, Steve Young of the San Francisco 49ers threw three 6 touchdowns.
• In 1990, Derrick Thomas had seven sacks for the Kansas City Chiefs, but they lost the game.
• In 2007, Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings rushed for 296 yeards.
• In 1976, Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs set the NHL record for most points in a game:  10 for six goals and four assists.

• 
  Wayne Gretzky scored 5 goals in a victory for Canada over the Soviet Union in the 1987 World Cup.
• In 1997, Tiger Woods won the Masters, shooting 18-under par, and winning by 12 strokes.

• 
  Well, not human, but Triple Crown Winner Secretariat won by 31 lengths in the 1973 Belmont Stakes.
• In the 1963-64 U.S. Chess Championship, Bobby Fischer destroyed his opponents on his way to an 11-0 record.

No question but that Sho Time is the All-Time Sports Performance ever.

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