Ohtani wins AP male of the year award

*Photo from the Japan Times*

   After completing a season for the ages, Los Angeles Angels two way phenom Shohei Ohtani is still picking up awards. Ohtani was selected as the winner of the 2021 Associated Press Male of the Year award, in an announcement made by the AP on Tuesday.

   Ohtani wins the AP Male of the Year award after putting together one of the best seasons in human history, and also an unprecedented one. Almost no one in baseball has been an every day two way player like Ohtani has been in the last 20 years, and no one has been one of the best hitters and pitchers at the same time since a guy named Babe Ruth.

   Angels manager Joe Maddon said of Ohtani's numbers late in the season that "He's doing something we haven't seen in our lifetimes, but he's also doing it at the very highest level of hitting and pitching. He's doing more than other players, but he's also doing it better than almost everybody else on that field, and those are the greatest players in the game, his contemporaries. He's playing their game, but he's also playing a different game."

   Last season, Ohtani, the unanimous AL MVP winner, put together a great hitting season, winning a silver slugger after finishing with a .257 batting average and .965 OPS, mashing 46 home runs and driving in exactly 100, also stealing 26 bases in 155 games as a hitter. On the pitching side, Ohtani finished with a 9-2 record with a 3.18 ERA, striking out 156 hitters in 130 1/3 innings, totaling 23 starts.

   With Ohtani in the midst of a quite dominant season in 2021, he kept baseball historians and statheads busy as they tried to figure who was the last person to accomplish every record that Ohtani was setting as his own. He has become a global icon of baseball with his two way prowess, easily becoming the most popular baseball player in the world.

   Asked about Ohtani during a series between the two teams in July, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said that "I've never seen fans get to ballparks so early and stay to the end. That's what he's bringing to the equation. I love it. Seems like every pitch when he's at the plate, you can hear the oohs and aahs. I think it's great for baseball."