AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The World Series starts tonight. Last year's champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, face the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays have not won baseball's fall classic since 1993. When it comes to the Dodgers, it seems the story always starts with superstar hitter and pitcher Shohei Ohtani. And as it turns out, some of Ohtani's biggest fans play for his opponents, as Steve Futterman reports.
STEVE FUTTERMAN: A week ago tonight...
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: There goes Ohtani - Shohei.
FUTTERMAN: ...Shohei Ohtani had what some have called...
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Oh, my goodness - Shohei Ohtani.
FUTTERMAN: ...The greatest single-game performance in baseball history.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Ohtani has done it again. His third home run...
FUTTERMAN: In Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, he hit three home runs. But the uniqueness of Ohtani is that he can both hit and pitch. Along with the home runs, Ohtani threw for 6 innings and struck out 10. Yesterday, here in Toronto, his Dodger teammate, Clayton Kershaw, was still raving about it.
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CLAYTON KERSHAW: There's a lot of kids in high school that can do both, right? There's a lot of kids in college that could potentially do both. But once you make it to the - professional baseball, if you're not elite, elite at both, somebody's going to say, hey, you need to specialize in one.
FUTTERMAN: It doesn't matter who you talk to in baseball - teammates, opponents - Ohtani keeps doing things players say are hard to comprehend. Toronto's George Springer says Ohtani is always amazing, but last Friday...
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GEORGE SPRINGER: The stuff that Ohtani can do is - it's just not human. I mean, it's so hard to do what he does, and, you know, he does both. He's just a once-in-a-lifetime player.
FUTTERMAN: For the last two years, many baseball fans have started calling Ohtani the greatest player ever, but they are fans. Now, even some players are doing it. Yesterday, I spoke with the Dodgers' Mookie Betts. Betts is viewed as a future Hall-of-Famer. He says Ohtani is the greatest ever.
Do you see a division between someone like you and him?
MOOKIE BETTS: Yeah, it's a huge division. It's not close. Yeah. It's - nobody...
FUTTERMAN: Not close?
BETTS: No. Nobody's - nobody can do what he's doing.
FUTTERMAN: However, before we crown Ohtani the best ever, let's not forget the Toronto Blue Jays' superstar first baseman, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #3: Fly ball, high in the air to left - and it's gone.
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FUTTERMAN: In many ways, Guerrero is actually doing better than Ohtani this postseason. He has six home runs. Ohtani has five. Guerrero is batting 442. Ohtani has struggled hitting just 220.
Guerrero comes from a baseball pedigree. His father, Vlad Sr., is in the Hall of Fame. It's Guerrero's power and tremendous bat speed that make him so dangerous. Toronto pitcher Shane Bieber calls him inspiring.
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SHANE BIEBER: He is worth every penny. Being able to see not only his performance on the field but the work that he puts in behind the scenes, his demeanor in the dugout, in the clubhouse, on the field - we all feed off of it. He's a special, special player.
FUTTERMAN: But as great as he is, when Guerrero met with the media yesterday, guess who he wanted to talk about? Yep, Shohei Ohtani.
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VLADIMIR GUERRERO JR: He's not good, he's one of the best in the league, you know? Every time I saw him, I just told him, like, how I respect him, how much I respect him and how much I admire him. You know, to me he's, like, one of the best in the league. He can pitch. He can hit.
FUTTERMAN: And at some point in this series - probably Game 4 - the two seem almost certain to go head to head, with Ohtani pitching against Guerrero.
For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman at the World Series in Toronto.
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