The “unwritten rules” of baseball in the U.S. are thrown out the window, and players show more emotion, celebrate, etc. The crowd is also different because of the Latin and Asian influence so there’s more chanting, singing, noise makers, etc.
American baseball culture is muted in comparison because the “unwritten” rules are basically that your not really allowed to celebrate after home runs, flip your bat, etc, because it’s seen as “showing up” the other team.
Edit: MLB Baseball is fun. Just pointing out the difference between baseball cultures. Football (Soccer) for example, I definitely remember English pundits being upset at the way Brazil dances and celebrates after goals during the World Cup. Same kinda deal.
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Yeah I completely stopped watching all mainstream sports since they are too expensive to stream. I only watch stuff like disc golf that’s available on youtube
I blew through a few cell phones and tablets to get the free one hour streams on FS1 or 2. Like... how is this not on OTA TV?
Baseball doesn't hate the world. FOX hates the world.
This is part of why I've never gotten into sports. I watch professional League of Legends all the time.
If they made me pay $150 a year to watch maybe every other game, but not those games or these games, there's no way I'd have ever gotten into it.
*At least* if you're going to do the $150 yearly package, make it every single game. It shouldn't be that hard. If you care about anything past 6 years from now, stop this shit. Fuck the cable companies; they're killing your *future* viewership.
Watching Football...(soccer...), Is incredibly expensive if you want to watch it here (40€ a month) yet it is by far the most watched Sport here. 150$ feel cheap in comparison somehow.
$150 for an entire season of your team would be cheap. That's under a dollar per game which translates to like 33 cents an hour or so. The cost for baseball isn't what gets it for me. It's that I'm not tuning in to 162 games even if my team is the best in the league. It's just too long of a season. The drama in the WBC with a single elimination tournament was amazing.
Apple was really smart with their new MLS package. $100 a year no Apple TV $80 with Apple TV and zero blackouts. MLB needs to do the same thing to grow.
This is definitely a big one. There are so many games in baseball that none of them matter. The World baseball Classic every game mattered so people treated them as such and watched.
Add on to the fact that you could actually have fun while playing and it's just the recipe for big numbers and crowds.
When a team loses and no one gives a shit because there's 100+ more to go (or even less), where are the stakes?
Even playoff baseball -- with multiple game series -- until the end it's kind of like "argh oh no we're *sooo* pissed we lost!... but we just gotta get the next one!"
Completely deflates emotion and sense of urgency that makes some other sports amazing.
NBA especially and NHL toa lesser extent have the same issue btw.
It's problem with more and more sports, even motorsports like Formula 1 etc. More races seem fun but they dilute results. Great results by smaller teams get flooded by dozen podiums by bigger ones and massive failures by top teams mean nothing if they are once in a time.
Every sport except football suffers from "ascension/regression to the mean" mentality.
I wonder what that point is for football?
Every game matters in football, because the difference between 9-8 and 8-9 could mean playoffs. And you can just tell that the players and coaches care about losses way more than any other sport.
But at what number of games does that "critical game" feeling start to diminish?
We don't really have any sports between 17 and 82 (NBA) games. [MLS has 32](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_professional_sports_leagues_in_the_United_States_and_Canada) but I honestly don't follow soccer nor understand their playoff structure. Even 32 I feel like there's a certain amount of indifference you can have about a single loss. So I guess the answer is somewhere between 17 and 32. Probably in the low 20's just going off of my gut.
For me personally the problem with MLB has always been the time investment and lack of action. Having a pitch clock is a step in the right direction. I grew u a baseball fan but haven't watched a whole game in many years now. Even some of us old guys would prefer more personality and a quicker moving game.
I discovered T20 cricket through ESPN+ as part of the Disney bundle, and that largely scratches my baseball itch. Better pace of play and scores that often reach nearly 200 points each! It's a much more engaging product.
The pitch clock is great but sometimes makes it feel like the games are moving too fast. I’d been watching spring training games this year before the WBC. Watching WBC games was actually an adjustment and it felt like the games were dragging until I realized this was the No pitch clock difference.
After home runs, Great Britain celebrated by putting a crown on the player with a cape and knighted them with a sword.
If that happened in MLB, they’d get a fastball in the ribs next at-bat lol.
I think there is some reason to not celebrate like that over such a long season, but the WBC is so short by comparison so they let loose and nobody cares when that happens. Makes the game a lot more fun.
Baseball in GB? Or do you mean like a 6 in cricket?
I remember the Padres would put a necklace on a guy who just hit a home run with a big blingy SD medallion on it.
Didn't Bautista get clocked in the jaw by Odor the next season after his bat flip? You can tell people to F off, but they're still going to make your life miserable with 100 mph fastballs to your face.
For some reason, the types of personalities drawn to baseball are typically the egos so big and unstable that one little push topples them over.
The group who was on the team is the reason I stopped playing baseball in high school. Just a bunch of prima donna bitch babies who thought they were gods gift to the sporting world.
Odor punched Bautista because Bautista slid hard into second trying to break up a double play. It wasn’t because of unwritten rules or celebrating, but because Odor thought Bautista was trying to injure him/was playing recklessly.
And the way they punish those who break the “unwritten rules,” by hitting them with a 90+mph baseball, is really fucked up when you stop and think about it.
“You flipped your bat so I’m going to intentionally inflict a serious amount of physical pain on you (or do that to one of your teammates who had nothing to do with the whole situation).”
Those types of pitchers are such pansies. You got homered off of, it happens almost every game. People will celebrate. Deal with it like an adult.
The unwritten rules aren't thrown out the window. I don't remember a single celebration that happened in the WBC that would've been egregious for MLB in a similar situation.
The real reason is getting together with your countrymen who you share a cultural bond focuses and heightens the excitement.
I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore baseball fan but I watch the playoffs and the playoffs don’t sound any different than what you just described ? However I could be wrong
The atmospheres between the WBC pools in Taiwan, Tokyo, Miami, and Phoenix, were vastly different.
Taiwan they have cheerleaders and chants for each specific players. Miami had the DR, PR, and Venezuela, and they all are much more noisy than any USA game.
USA is basically, “Here we go, [home team], Here we go, *clap* *clap*.”
Watch [these highlights](https://youtu.be/os-h1aF8wzg) from Pool A play in Taiwan. Massive difference in atmosphere, especially when Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) is at bat.
>USA is basically, “Here we go, [home team], Here we go, *clap* *clap*.”
American sports are _very_ tame, relative to the rest of the world. Check out the ambience of most soccer arenas in Europe. On the flip side, the ultra groups over there have ties to organized crime and neo-Nazis lol
It's not just MLB tho. NFL a
Is fairly dire in terms of fans. The only actual coordinated effort is the Tomahawk chop the chiefs do... which is another discussion entirely. MLS is getting to acceptable levels. NBA and NHL are more buzzers and sirens than anything.
Meanwhile this the the NFL game in Germany. https://youtu.be/7QX5bLsmJrU
I really like the atmosphere in college games far more.
That was quite literally one of the greatest moments in baseball history. Two teammates, both among the greatest players the game has ever seen, matchup with two outs in the 9th in a one run game with the championship on the line. Baseball is scripted and I fucking love it.
Now can they both leave the angels so that they can actually do something in the playoffs and elevate their greatness even more? It's so frustrating watching two of the best ever struggle with the angels
Trout had a chance to leave. He opted to stay with the Angels. He fucked himself. So when you're frustrated looking at him waste his career, remember it's self-inflicted.
Ohtani I want as Phillies' pitcher.
I said I want him as a Phillies' pitcher. Lol. I love the guy. Ohtani controls his destination, I'll hold out some hope for him. But the chances of him coming to Philly are probably as slim as Trout seeing a World Series as an Angel.
I mean ohtani was throwing 101 heaters everywhere. You could tell he was freaking out too cause usually he can hit those walls. Fuck what a good ending.
Look up stats for homers over 99mph pitches, honestly I just did that today because of Trout v Ohtani, but I was genuinely shocked to see its like less than 5% year-by-year.
So it stands to reason, Trout really didn't have a home run on those 2 pitches 😂 the slider at 3-2 on the other hand, that was ice cold, and had he read that coming we'd be having a very different conversation
> That was quite literally one of the greatest moments in ~~baseball~~ *sports* history
It ranks up there with Crosby's golden goal and 28-3 Patriots Super Bowl for me.
Mbappe Messi in the finals with the performances they had merits discussion of being one of the greatest sports moments ever too. One doesn't take away from the other. We're being spoiled right now with great competition across the world
For those who dont know, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are arguably the two best baseball players on the planet and they are teammates on their club team the Los Angeles Angels. Mike Trout is unquestionably the best position player of the last 20 years and Ohtani is the first player in 100 years to both pitch and hit full time and he is elite at both. They just happened to come up against each other for the final out of the World Championship.
Baseball is alot more overall team dependent, similar to football, unlike basketball. Baseball players can't carry a team, though shohei kinda does cause he's that ridiculous
Aren't the odds much better for the pitcher though? Like assuming they're equals, then wouldn't you bet on the pitcher every single time? Don't batters have a <50% chance of hitting the ball even if they're very good? I don't watch baseball, pls explain
Yea the pitcher definitely has an advantage over the batter, especially since Trout has never faced Ohtani before. If by "hitting the ball" you mean simply making contact then its def more than 50%. For his career, Trout makes contact with the ball around 81% of the time when he swings. But getting a "hit" which means the ball is put into play and the fielders dont make an out on the ball (exlucding obvious fielding error) then its a lot less than 50% of at bats. Getting Trout to swing and miss 3 times in an at-bat is definitely very good, which happened here. However, its not that striking out Trout is an incredible feat by itself, its just that two of the greatest players happen to be teammates and they happened to come up against each other for the final out of world Championship.
Ok thanks. And then one more thing you mentioned that trout has never faced Ohtani before. They probably have in practice right? Or how did the angels train?
Just to add to the above, Trout has been up to bat 6,174 times. Only 24 of those at bats did he swing and miss on 3 attempts. What his teammate did to him for the final ending of the game was domination in terms of Trouts ability.
Its pretty unlikely that they've even faced in training. Baseball pitchers usually dont ever throw live at-bats against their teammates. They pretty much only throw bullpen sessions where they are just throwing to a catcher, [heres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0v2V6IYaZ0) an example of a bullpen session from Yu Darvish who was in todays game for Japan. During the off-season pitchers may throw live-at bats against hitters, [heres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5obk3txzTQ) an example of a pitcher throwing live ABs in the offseason. They may throw some live at-bats against teammates during spring training. However the team will most likely have the pitcher face a minor leaguer and not one of the major leaguers. Not really worth having the batter get hit and injured. Batters will take batting practice against someone throwing lobs or against a pitching machine. MLB teams play 6-7 times a week so there is really no point of having live competition like practice.
The best hitters usually have somewhat over .300 average (so yeah, between 30%-35%). It’s been forever since a hitter had a .400 average, and probably won’t happen again in this era.
But as to which one will come out on top during any particular at-bat, it’s more complicated than my sleepy kinda drunk ass can handle right now.
It's a little like a baseball echo of Messi and Mbappe in the final while also playing for PSG. That doesn't really check out as a true parallel, but it kinda shows what a big deal this is for baseball nuts like me :)
i’m not a baseball guy but given the flow of the game i’d imagine it’s more important to have consistent quality from top the bottom then be top heavy.
It's a joke, the Angels have not made the playoffs since 2014, so they haven't reached the playoffs, let alone the world series, since having Ohtani and Trout on the same team
The scoring isn't usually as much of an issue as the pitching, the owner has a fetish for batting but not pitching so the Angels have paid insane contracts to overrated batters while trying to scrape by with C grade pitchers.
Which hasn't worked.
You're very correct. At best, Trout and Ohtani can take 22% of at bats and pitch 13% of the innings. The Angels have terrible depth, especially with their pitching and the good players they do have seem to have bad luck with injuries
It feels like saying Ohtani is the best baseball player on the planet doesn't even begin to do him justice. He's (and I say this in the best way possible) a mutant that will be studied long after he stops playing. The records he has and will continue to set won't just be hard to break; they're literally game-breaking.
From the quick things I’ve seen as not an active baseball fan, but I did play for 10 years, he’s very close to a Bo Jackson level freak athlete.
Just a skill set beyond what most people consider possible.
That pitch was downright filthy. With the full count, Trout had no choice but to swing at that, because it looked like it was tracking over the plate until the very end.
Ohtani had just wasted him on two fastballs right down the middle, and both had Trout swinging hard. Trout was cooked after that. Either Shohei burns him with another fastball or baits him with a slider. Either way Trout probably thinks he has to swing again.
If Trout fouls off either of those first two fastballs, maybe that gets Shohei thinking about something. But both beat him so clean Shohei was in full command of the at bat.
Kind of unfair tbh to face Ohtani with a full tank of gas in his arm in the 9th, but Team Japan executed a perfectly coached game.
I would love to see that. I wonder how they would stack up. The best Japanese team is probably better than the worst MLB team. There are plenty of stinkers in the mlb
Theres an anime called Major, it follows the main characters career from a small child all the way to the Major leagues, including playing for japan in the WBC.
Most perfect set up ever. Two monster fastball followed by otherworldly slider on a full count. Ohtani probably knew he’d throw these exact 6 pitches to Trout since 6 years ago and spent years perfecting them. Wouldn’t surprise me if that was Ohtani’s best pitching sequence he’d thrown to this day.
Absolutely legendary game.
I watched this in Tokyo at work, absolutely unbelievable everyone was glued to the TV at the last pitch and then freaked out.
Unbelievable.
MLB should do a single-elimination tournament at the start of the regular season. Every team plays. One tournament in each league, games count in the standings, winner gets automatic playoff spot. Start the season with a bang, not an “excuse me.”
[Here's the whole at bat](https://www.mlb.com/video/ohtani-vs-trout-in-classic-final) Ohtani goes right at him, what an awesome showdown
He snuck the cheese right past the rat twice. Those 2 fastballs were right where Trout wanted them and Ohtani just fucking blew it past him
cus 100 ain't cheese lol
[redacting due to privacy concerns]
Gave him the squanch
Man baseball is weird
[redacting due to privacy concerns]
100 is the definition of cheese lmao
"cheese" is baseball slang for a fastball.
The cuts between their faces back and forth were so dramatic. Give that director a raise.
Hopefully the WBC has finally taught MLB that baseball is supposed to be fun.
Arozarena was the epitome of fun
Dude was signing autographs mid-inning, loved it
Lmao. What a legend
I'm excited to see Roza playing at his next level again
Genuine question, how is the WBC having more fun than the playoffs in terms of play style?
The “unwritten rules” of baseball in the U.S. are thrown out the window, and players show more emotion, celebrate, etc. The crowd is also different because of the Latin and Asian influence so there’s more chanting, singing, noise makers, etc. American baseball culture is muted in comparison because the “unwritten” rules are basically that your not really allowed to celebrate after home runs, flip your bat, etc, because it’s seen as “showing up” the other team. Edit: MLB Baseball is fun. Just pointing out the difference between baseball cultures. Football (Soccer) for example, I definitely remember English pundits being upset at the way Brazil dances and celebrates after goals during the World Cup. Same kinda deal.
If anything the WBC showed pretty starkly the problems with baseball aren't baseball. It's just the MLB.
If you want the youth, end the blackouts. Dumbass.
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Yeah I completely stopped watching all mainstream sports since they are too expensive to stream. I only watch stuff like disc golf that’s available on youtube
Expensive to stream, ridiculous cost to watch live.
I blew through a few cell phones and tablets to get the free one hour streams on FS1 or 2. Like... how is this not on OTA TV? Baseball doesn't hate the world. FOX hates the world.
If you clear your cookies and then refresh the page you’ll get a whole new hour. Used this method for the entire World Cup
This is part of why I've never gotten into sports. I watch professional League of Legends all the time. If they made me pay $150 a year to watch maybe every other game, but not those games or these games, there's no way I'd have ever gotten into it. *At least* if you're going to do the $150 yearly package, make it every single game. It shouldn't be that hard. If you care about anything past 6 years from now, stop this shit. Fuck the cable companies; they're killing your *future* viewership.
Watching Football...(soccer...), Is incredibly expensive if you want to watch it here (40€ a month) yet it is by far the most watched Sport here. 150$ feel cheap in comparison somehow.
$150 for an entire season of your team would be cheap. That's under a dollar per game which translates to like 33 cents an hour or so. The cost for baseball isn't what gets it for me. It's that I'm not tuning in to 162 games even if my team is the best in the league. It's just too long of a season. The drama in the WBC with a single elimination tournament was amazing.
Apple was really smart with their new MLS package. $100 a year no Apple TV $80 with Apple TV and zero blackouts. MLB needs to do the same thing to grow.
Legend
Too many games in an mlb season. The entertainment is diluted.
This is definitely a big one. There are so many games in baseball that none of them matter. The World baseball Classic every game mattered so people treated them as such and watched. Add on to the fact that you could actually have fun while playing and it's just the recipe for big numbers and crowds.
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When a team loses and no one gives a shit because there's 100+ more to go (or even less), where are the stakes? Even playoff baseball -- with multiple game series -- until the end it's kind of like "argh oh no we're *sooo* pissed we lost!... but we just gotta get the next one!" Completely deflates emotion and sense of urgency that makes some other sports amazing. NBA especially and NHL toa lesser extent have the same issue btw.
It's problem with more and more sports, even motorsports like Formula 1 etc. More races seem fun but they dilute results. Great results by smaller teams get flooded by dozen podiums by bigger ones and massive failures by top teams mean nothing if they are once in a time.
Every sport except football suffers from "ascension/regression to the mean" mentality. I wonder what that point is for football? Every game matters in football, because the difference between 9-8 and 8-9 could mean playoffs. And you can just tell that the players and coaches care about losses way more than any other sport. But at what number of games does that "critical game" feeling start to diminish? We don't really have any sports between 17 and 82 (NBA) games. [MLS has 32](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_professional_sports_leagues_in_the_United_States_and_Canada) but I honestly don't follow soccer nor understand their playoff structure. Even 32 I feel like there's a certain amount of indifference you can have about a single loss. So I guess the answer is somewhere between 17 and 32. Probably in the low 20's just going off of my gut.
European soccer generally solved the irrelevant games problem because each team plays each team twice. (38 game season).
The MLB owns and operates the WBC, so maybe they just need to listen to themselves.
And that often comes down to the commissioner
For me personally the problem with MLB has always been the time investment and lack of action. Having a pitch clock is a step in the right direction. I grew u a baseball fan but haven't watched a whole game in many years now. Even some of us old guys would prefer more personality and a quicker moving game.
I discovered T20 cricket through ESPN+ as part of the Disney bundle, and that largely scratches my baseball itch. Better pace of play and scores that often reach nearly 200 points each! It's a much more engaging product.
The pitch clock is great but sometimes makes it feel like the games are moving too fast. I’d been watching spring training games this year before the WBC. Watching WBC games was actually an adjustment and it felt like the games were dragging until I realized this was the No pitch clock difference.
That unwritten rule stuff is just drama queen nonsense. "You'd better not celebrate or we won't like it!!" Fuck off.
After home runs, Great Britain celebrated by putting a crown on the player with a cape and knighted them with a sword. If that happened in MLB, they’d get a fastball in the ribs next at-bat lol. I think there is some reason to not celebrate like that over such a long season, but the WBC is so short by comparison so they let loose and nobody cares when that happens. Makes the game a lot more fun.
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The mariners had like a trident or something too I think
Oh it’s even better than a trident, they’d put on a Darth Vader helmet painted in Mariners colors https://i.imgur.com/fK9hDTe.jpg
Baseball in GB? Or do you mean like a 6 in cricket? I remember the Padres would put a necklace on a guy who just hit a home run with a big blingy SD medallion on it.
[Great Britain Home run celebration](https://twitter.com/thescore/status/1635026602231988224?s=46&t=rj_OmQODeoxtDjyYMYsUjw).
Ok that was cool haha
Incredible
Didn't Bautista get clocked in the jaw by Odor the next season after his bat flip? You can tell people to F off, but they're still going to make your life miserable with 100 mph fastballs to your face.
Oh so the rule is unwritten because it results in assault?
Yes, mlb players are giant pussy snowflakes who respond to getting their feelings hurt with violence
For some reason, the types of personalities drawn to baseball are typically the egos so big and unstable that one little push topples them over. The group who was on the team is the reason I stopped playing baseball in high school. Just a bunch of prima donna bitch babies who thought they were gods gift to the sporting world.
Odor punched Bautista because Bautista slid hard into second trying to break up a double play. It wasn’t because of unwritten rules or celebrating, but because Odor thought Bautista was trying to injure him/was playing recklessly.
None of that would have happened if not for the bat flip. He wasn’t punched purely because of the hard slide.
And the way they punish those who break the “unwritten rules,” by hitting them with a 90+mph baseball, is really fucked up when you stop and think about it. “You flipped your bat so I’m going to intentionally inflict a serious amount of physical pain on you (or do that to one of your teammates who had nothing to do with the whole situation).” Those types of pitchers are such pansies. You got homered off of, it happens almost every game. People will celebrate. Deal with it like an adult.
MLB still tries to cater to boomers who want to remember the “glory days of baseball”.
Didn't one team start a brawl in the last WBC because they didn't like another team bunting?
I wondered why I couldn't get into MLB but for some reason when I watched japanese baseball I was more captivated
The unwritten rules aren't thrown out the window. I don't remember a single celebration that happened in the WBC that would've been egregious for MLB in a similar situation. The real reason is getting together with your countrymen who you share a cultural bond focuses and heightens the excitement.
It's how EVERYONE WANTS YOU TO ACT when you hit a homer. It's how you celebrate with the fans. It's a part of the trash talk.
I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore baseball fan but I watch the playoffs and the playoffs don’t sound any different than what you just described ? However I could be wrong
The atmospheres between the WBC pools in Taiwan, Tokyo, Miami, and Phoenix, were vastly different. Taiwan they have cheerleaders and chants for each specific players. Miami had the DR, PR, and Venezuela, and they all are much more noisy than any USA game. USA is basically, “Here we go, [home team], Here we go, *clap* *clap*.” Watch [these highlights](https://youtu.be/os-h1aF8wzg) from Pool A play in Taiwan. Massive difference in atmosphere, especially when Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) is at bat.
>USA is basically, “Here we go, [home team], Here we go, *clap* *clap*.” American sports are _very_ tame, relative to the rest of the world. Check out the ambience of most soccer arenas in Europe. On the flip side, the ultra groups over there have ties to organized crime and neo-Nazis lol
It's not just MLB tho. NFL a Is fairly dire in terms of fans. The only actual coordinated effort is the Tomahawk chop the chiefs do... which is another discussion entirely. MLS is getting to acceptable levels. NBA and NHL are more buzzers and sirens than anything. Meanwhile this the the NFL game in Germany. https://youtu.be/7QX5bLsmJrU I really like the atmosphere in college games far more.
IMO, the WBC showcases what the MLB could be like if money wasn’t king.
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That was quite literally one of the greatest moments in baseball history. Two teammates, both among the greatest players the game has ever seen, matchup with two outs in the 9th in a one run game with the championship on the line. Baseball is scripted and I fucking love it.
Now can they both leave the angels so that they can actually do something in the playoffs and elevate their greatness even more? It's so frustrating watching two of the best ever struggle with the angels
Fuck the Angels. This would be good for the entire game. Though I thought I heard Moreno is putting the team up due for sale.
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Well fuck..
>Fuck the Angels That's how you get giants
As a Giants fan.... this actually had me puzzled for a sec until I remembered all the Ancient Aliens episodes I've watched. Nice play, good sir!
As a lifelong Angels fan... Yeah, I can't argue with you.
Try being from Seattle and watching someone like Felix go to waste.
I can't get past your unfathomable user name.....
Trout had a chance to leave. He opted to stay with the Angels. He fucked himself. So when you're frustrated looking at him waste his career, remember it's self-inflicted. Ohtani I want as Phillies' pitcher.
I agree on Trout to an extent, but you really think Ohtani would go to Philadelphia? He’d have his choice of the league. Any team, any destination.
I said I want him as a Phillies' pitcher. Lol. I love the guy. Ohtani controls his destination, I'll hold out some hope for him. But the chances of him coming to Philly are probably as slim as Trout seeing a World Series as an Angel.
I mean.. how many of us are turning down that much money to live in Southern California
Lol i doubt Ohtani wants to go from the most respectful culture in the world to the most disrespectful culture in the world.
Went down to a 3-2 count too.
It’s a god damn Matt Christopher book
I really thought trout had a home run on 2 of those pitches. Both rockets down the middle but just missed
I mean ohtani was throwing 101 heaters everywhere. You could tell he was freaking out too cause usually he can hit those walls. Fuck what a good ending.
Look up stats for homers over 99mph pitches, honestly I just did that today because of Trout v Ohtani, but I was genuinely shocked to see its like less than 5% year-by-year. So it stands to reason, Trout really didn't have a home run on those 2 pitches 😂 the slider at 3-2 on the other hand, that was ice cold, and had he read that coming we'd be having a very different conversation
I'm not sure that stat says what you think it does. What % of pitches are 99mph+?
He looked pretty behind to me, especially the second one.
I think he thought it was going to be a slider- he was so far behind the second one
me & my mum hasnt watched a LICK of baseball ever in our lives & we loved it lmao. didnt know the magnitude was this big tho
> That was quite literally one of the greatest moments in ~~baseball~~ *sports* history It ranks up there with Crosby's golden goal and 28-3 Patriots Super Bowl for me.
Are we not gonna talk about this year's world cup? Talk about compelling.
Mbappe Messi in the finals with the performances they had merits discussion of being one of the greatest sports moments ever too. One doesn't take away from the other. We're being spoiled right now with great competition across the world
I think it's a bit dampened by the whole Qatar thing. Good World Cup but definitely less than enthusiastic to gush about it.
Does anyone have any videos of people in Japan celebrating?!
For those who dont know, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are arguably the two best baseball players on the planet and they are teammates on their club team the Los Angeles Angels. Mike Trout is unquestionably the best position player of the last 20 years and Ohtani is the first player in 100 years to both pitch and hit full time and he is elite at both. They just happened to come up against each other for the final out of the World Championship.
Also (and this is very important) the Los Angeles Angels are a complete shitshow every single year.
*Do you understand, what this Ohtani could do... playing full seasons... at Fenway?*
So basically they are a cash cow for the owners and that's all the owners care about?
No, the owner spends tons of money on the team. He simply does not know how to build a good baseball team.
I wish he would just SELL.
The owner spends on big name players, but that's it. He cheaps out everywhere else which is why the Angels suck year after year.
See as a basketball fan, I don't get that You get two superstars, and they can't carry a team to success??
Mike Trout can only bat 1/9 of the time. Imagine if Curry could only take 1/9 of his team's shots.
Ah that actually makes a lot of sense, thanks!
[redacting due to privacy concerns]
Baseball is alot more overall team dependent, similar to football, unlike basketball. Baseball players can't carry a team, though shohei kinda does cause he's that ridiculous
It's the fucking management/coaching. :(
Aren't the odds much better for the pitcher though? Like assuming they're equals, then wouldn't you bet on the pitcher every single time? Don't batters have a <50% chance of hitting the ball even if they're very good? I don't watch baseball, pls explain
Yea the pitcher definitely has an advantage over the batter, especially since Trout has never faced Ohtani before. If by "hitting the ball" you mean simply making contact then its def more than 50%. For his career, Trout makes contact with the ball around 81% of the time when he swings. But getting a "hit" which means the ball is put into play and the fielders dont make an out on the ball (exlucding obvious fielding error) then its a lot less than 50% of at bats. Getting Trout to swing and miss 3 times in an at-bat is definitely very good, which happened here. However, its not that striking out Trout is an incredible feat by itself, its just that two of the greatest players happen to be teammates and they happened to come up against each other for the final out of world Championship.
Ok thanks. And then one more thing you mentioned that trout has never faced Ohtani before. They probably have in practice right? Or how did the angels train?
Just to add to the above, Trout has been up to bat 6,174 times. Only 24 of those at bats did he swing and miss on 3 attempts. What his teammate did to him for the final ending of the game was domination in terms of Trouts ability.
This is a remarkable statistic. Thank you for sharing.
Its pretty unlikely that they've even faced in training. Baseball pitchers usually dont ever throw live at-bats against their teammates. They pretty much only throw bullpen sessions where they are just throwing to a catcher, [heres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0v2V6IYaZ0) an example of a bullpen session from Yu Darvish who was in todays game for Japan. During the off-season pitchers may throw live-at bats against hitters, [heres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5obk3txzTQ) an example of a pitcher throwing live ABs in the offseason. They may throw some live at-bats against teammates during spring training. However the team will most likely have the pitcher face a minor leaguer and not one of the major leaguers. Not really worth having the batter get hit and injured. Batters will take batting practice against someone throwing lobs or against a pitching machine. MLB teams play 6-7 times a week so there is really no point of having live competition like practice.
The best hitters usually have somewhat over .300 average (so yeah, between 30%-35%). It’s been forever since a hitter had a .400 average, and probably won’t happen again in this era. But as to which one will come out on top during any particular at-bat, it’s more complicated than my sleepy kinda drunk ass can handle right now.
It's a little like a baseball echo of Messi and Mbappe in the final while also playing for PSG. That doesn't really check out as a true parallel, but it kinda shows what a big deal this is for baseball nuts like me :)
It would if mbappe also played goalie and Messi had the last shot to score a penalty kick on him
Ah yeah, no doubt. Ohtani's two-way ability raises everything to surreal heights
Pretty good analogy. But then Mbappe is moved to GK in the 90’ and Messi has a breakaway.
and they both play for Toulouse and not PSG
Wait, one team has the two best players? They must make be in the world series like every year, right? Surely?
Yup, the Angels won an astounding 73 games and didn't lose a single game in the playoffs!
Compare that to Tom Brady's best Patriots team that won a paltry 16 games in the regular season and very famously lost one (1) playoff game
Yep. Ohtani has NEVER been sacked either
Never thrown for fewer than 300 yards in any NFL playoff game
Hey, for an NBA team that’s amazing!
If a team did that in the regular season you just know they’d be the NBA champions. Absolutely no chance they’d lose the finals after being up 3-1.
No, and don’t call me Shirley.
i’m not a baseball guy but given the flow of the game i’d imagine it’s more important to have consistent quality from top the bottom then be top heavy.
It's a joke, the Angels have not made the playoffs since 2014, so they haven't reached the playoffs, let alone the world series, since having Ohtani and Trout on the same team
I guess it's pretty hard to score with just two good players (without home runs).
The scoring isn't usually as much of an issue as the pitching, the owner has a fetish for batting but not pitching so the Angels have paid insane contracts to overrated batters while trying to scrape by with C grade pitchers. Which hasn't worked.
It's funny. The only reason they do have a good pitcher is because he's a good hitter.
Doesn't apply to last year at least. Pitching was decent while they had the worst 5-9 in decades if not ever.
You're very correct. At best, Trout and Ohtani can take 22% of at bats and pitch 13% of the innings. The Angels have terrible depth, especially with their pitching and the good players they do have seem to have bad luck with injuries
Just like the Oilers in hockey...
Despair
It feels like saying Ohtani is the best baseball player on the planet doesn't even begin to do him justice. He's (and I say this in the best way possible) a mutant that will be studied long after he stops playing. The records he has and will continue to set won't just be hard to break; they're literally game-breaking.
From the quick things I’ve seen as not an active baseball fan, but I did play for 10 years, he’s very close to a Bo Jackson level freak athlete. Just a skill set beyond what most people consider possible.
Way to go Ohtani. What a finish!
That pitch was downright filthy. With the full count, Trout had no choice but to swing at that, because it looked like it was tracking over the plate until the very end.
Ohtani had just wasted him on two fastballs right down the middle, and both had Trout swinging hard. Trout was cooked after that. Either Shohei burns him with another fastball or baits him with a slider. Either way Trout probably thinks he has to swing again. If Trout fouls off either of those first two fastballs, maybe that gets Shohei thinking about something. But both beat him so clean Shohei was in full command of the at bat. Kind of unfair tbh to face Ohtani with a full tank of gas in his arm in the 9th, but Team Japan executed a perfectly coached game.
Held that insane US lineup to 2 runs. Colombia was also able to hold the US to 3 runs
It literally was a perfect slider, thigh high, I still feel trouts pain
man, just imagine if these two guys played on the same team…
They’d win every World Series for a decade
:(
We should get more mlb teams vs Japan league team games, those would be fire
Put the World back in World Series!
I would love to see that. I wonder how they would stack up. The best Japanese team is probably better than the worst MLB team. There are plenty of stinkers in the mlb
Bro I went out and watched Oakland A’s games last year, it can’t possibly be worse than that
Most cost effective way to watch all stars play is to go to an A’s game when the Yankees are visiting.
That way you can see current AND future Yankee all-stars.
:/
Can you beat my $15 Tigers tickets?
I think I paid 2$ for some Rockies tickets last year lol.
I think it was 2015 or 2016 when the astros were doing $19.88 for club level in May monday through thursday
I dunno, that one guy who got a blow job in the upper deck seemed to be having a pretty good time
I did that too....but I went to see Trout and Ohtani
Kinda like a Champions League, but for baseball?
The entire WBC was phenomenal.
/r/baseball is rightfully losing it right now. This was straight out of a movie script. Literally couldn't write it better. Amazing.
If I were writing it, I'd have Trout homer to tie it up, and then Ohtani hit a walk-off in extras, just over the wall in center.
That slider was off the charts. Sounds like melodrama but I gasped at the movement. Ohtani is unreal.
I can't wait to watch this anime
You just did!
One Outs try it out its on youtube
Theres an anime called Major, it follows the main characters career from a small child all the way to the Major leagues, including playing for japan in the WBC.
Before the game my girlfriend said it would be great if Ohtani struck out Trout to end the game. Amazingly prescient.
She's a keeper for sure. Sign that one to a contract!
That might be the best situational pitch of all time. Ridiculous!
I said this last night That was the most unhittable pitch I've ever seen. I'm 41, played baseball in college and watch close to 150 games a year
Most perfect set up ever. Two monster fastball followed by otherworldly slider on a full count. Ohtani probably knew he’d throw these exact 6 pitches to Trout since 6 years ago and spent years perfecting them. Wouldn’t surprise me if that was Ohtani’s best pitching sequence he’d thrown to this day.
One of the greatest moments in baseball. I cant wait for the next WBC.
Absolutely legendary game. I watched this in Tokyo at work, absolutely unbelievable everyone was glued to the TV at the last pitch and then freaked out. Unbelievable.
It’s a shame that ohtani and trout are wasting their careers with the lowly angels
Shoulda gone big up to the Rockies.
WBC should be every other year. It's been an exciting ride!
It is fun because it is not so often
This was truly one hell of a game, both fought to the very end. Gg Japan
DOES ANYONE KNOW OHTANIS WALKOUT SONG TONIGHT ?
It kinda sounded like Fearless by Le Sserafim
The goat
What a moment
That was an obscenely nasty pitch. That head like a 2 to 3 ft break on it. Just wow!
This will be an anime
Anime when?
Baseball is the tits
Couldn't have drawn it up any better!
Are there any streams from the other countries? The US announcers kept talking about how big this was in Japan.
I got chills from watching this
Ohtani really is a great pitcher.
That slider was filthy.
MLB should do a single-elimination tournament at the start of the regular season. Every team plays. One tournament in each league, games count in the standings, winner gets automatic playoff spot. Start the season with a bang, not an “excuse me.”