Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Do you know who’s the best athlete in professional sports? Stephen Curry, who helped his basketball team to win the NBA Finals? Serena Williams, who had won 73 career titles in Tennis? Or Manchester United’s Harry Maguire, because many soccer fans said he is the man of the match in every game for the opposition team?
Two months ago, in July 2022, a Japanese baseball player, Ohtani Shohei was named the best male athlete of the year at the ESPY Awards. ESPY stands for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly. Ohtani Shohei is also the MVP, Most Valuable Player, in Major League Baseball in the 2021 season. Why does he manage to get so many awards? Because Ohtani Shohei is a two-way player in baseball. A two-way player refers to a player who is very good at pitching and batting.
Ohtani Shohei has the dream of being a two-way player when he was studying in primary school. He joined the school baseball team, and the coach asked if he would like to play as a pitcher or a batter. A pitcher needs to throw the baseball towards the home plate, and it is the key position on the defensive side. A batter needs to swing the baseball bat and tries to hit the baseball, and it is the key position on the offensive side.
The pitcher and batter have to receive different types of training. Usually a baseball player can be either a pitcher or batter. In fact, in the past one hundred years of baseball history, there is no one who can be a very good pitcher and a very good batter at the same time. But Ohtani Shohei wants to chase his dream, he wants to turn the impossible into possible. He started to do a lot of practice and asked the coach for advice so that he could become a two-way player.
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One of the practice that Ohtani Shohei started doing is to transform from a Right-Handed Batter to a Left-Handed Batter. Like 90% of all human beings in the world, Ohtani Shohei’s dominant hand is the right one. That means he generally uses his right hand in writing, brushing teeth, throwing a ball or swinging a baseball bat. Right-Handed Batter usually stands in the batter’s box located on the right hand side of the home plate.
Left-Handed Batter will stand in the batter’s box located on the left hand side of the home plate.
Although Ohtani Shohei usually swings with his right hand, the coach suggested him to learn and swing with his left hand. The reason is that once the batter hits the baseball, he can immediately run to the first base, which is closer to the left batter’s box. According to the statistics in Major League Baseball, the average time a right-handed batter takes to reach the first base is 4.35 seconds, while the average time a left-handed batter needs is 4.31 seconds. The difference is only 0.04 seconds, but Ohtani Shohei decided to do a lot of practice and tried to swing the bat with his left hand. He knew that in order to chase his dream, to become a two-way player in baseball, that 0.04 seconds matters a lot to him.
The theme of this month is “Love is Patient”. Ohtani Shohei loves baseball, he wants to do something that no one has done it before in the past. In order to chase his dream, he has to do a lot of practice. But he cannot suddenly be a successful player in just one day, he needs to be patient and keep practising every day. I hope all Shungtakians can learn from Ohtani Shohei’s story, practise, be patient, and succeed in chasing your own dreams.
Mr Sham B.
26 September 2022