A Nail-Biting Classic

The Dodgers celebrate (LA Times photo)

The Most Valuable Player of the 2025 World Series was a pitcher who was born and raised in Japan, but he wasn't Shohei Ohtani. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was the complete game winner of game two, was the starter and winner of game six, and was the closer and winner of game seven.

The seventh game of the World Series, often a letdown, was a nail-biting classic decided in the 11th inning, but it didn't start auspiciously.

When Bo Bichette hit a three-run home run off of Shohei Ohtani in the bottom of the third, it looked like Toronto was well on its way to a World championship; the Dodgers' anemic bats throughout the Series made a comeback a heavy lift. However, their relief pitching held the rest of the way as the visitors clawed their way back. The Dodgers were trailing 4-3 in the top of the ninth inning when their number-9 hitter became an unlikely hero.

Miguel Rojas became the first player to hit a tying home run in the ninth inning of a Game 7...Toronto was two outs from its first championship since 1993 when Rojas, inserted into the slumping Dodgers lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman and stunned the Rogers Centre crowd of 44,713.

“I’ve cost everybody in here a World Series ring," Hoffman said.

Rojas hadn't homered since Sept. 19.

The Dodgers finally prevailed in the 11th:

In the 11th, they finally won it, taking their first lead of the game on a Will Smith home run with two outs in the top half of the inning, then watching Yoshinobu Yamamoto — in his third inning of work, a night after throwing 96 pitches in a Game 6 win — close it all out on a double-play grounder to shortstop Mookie Betts.

The fans and even some players are talking about the Dodgers repeating as champions for the third year in a row. Los Angeles is not as dominant as the record indicates--just in the World Series there were a half-dozen plays where Toronto could have won the whole thing. Just appreciate what we just saw in Games 6 and 7 and let next year take care of itself.

Shohei Ohtani, GOAT

Major league baseball (MLB) was the first sport I followed. That's not surprising, because baseball was by far the dominant sport in the United States in the postwar era. I memorized the statistics of the srars who played before I was born: Cy Young, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Christy Mathewson, etc.

Then there was Babe Ruth, who hit an astounding 60 home runs in one season for the New York Yankees. Before he was the "Sultan of Swat," Babe Ruth was a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. His numerous records in hitting drew crowds across the country and was enough to put him on the Mt. Rushmore of baseball, but his excellence in pitching made him the greatest player in baseball history.

Until Friday night.

Headline: Shohei Ohtani Just Played What May Be the Greatest Game of All Time

But the things Shohei Ohtani does on the field are so astonishing that they make you wonder if everything you thought you knew about baseball for the last century and a half was wrong. He has redefined what was thought possible in a sport that appeared to have no more secrets.

Ohtani isn’t just the most talented player on the planet. He is likely the most talented player in history. And on Friday, Shohei Ohtani delivered the performance that will define him.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are going to the World Series for the second consecutive season because Ohtani carried them there with a box score that defies belief. On the mound, he dominated the Milwaukee Brewers over six shutout innings, allowing only two hits and striking out 10. At the plate, he blasted three home runs that traveled a combined 1,342 feet, transforming Dodger Stadium into his own personal launchpad...

“We’re like the Bulls,” [shortstop Mookie] Betts said, “and he’s Michael Jordan.”

After the outing that will forever be known as the “Shohei Ohtani game,” Ohtani himself had little to say. The closest he came to any sort of self-praise was, “This time around, it was my turn to be able to perform.”

But everyone who saw Ohtani on Friday knows the truth: There has never been anybody like Shohei Ohtani. There probably never will be again.

Knowledge (and familiarity) breed contempt. but in rare cases knowledge helps us to appreciate the greatness in front of us. The number of Hall-of-Famers who have called Shohei Ohtani the greatest baseball player in MLB's 149 years continues to grow.