In the fifth year of his utter domination of Major League Baseball, Shohei Ohtani only padded an already astounding résumé.

He hit 55 home runs and led the National League in runs scored, slugging percentage, OPS and total bases; he returned to pitching and posted a 2.87 ERA in 47 innings with 62 strikeouts; he became the first player to hit three home runs and strike out 10 batters in one game (and it came in a playoff game); he went to bat nine times in a World Series game and got on base nine times (tying a World Series record with four extra-base hits along the way); and he was the starting pitcher in Game 7 of the World Series, which his Los Angeles Dodgers won to become the first repeat champion in 25 years.

Ohtani won his fourth MVP award Thursday — and all four have been unanimous selections, making Ohtani the only player with more than one such selection. (Only Barry Bonds has won more than three.)

The latest MVP honor caps a remarkable past five seasons for Ohtani, four of which he has spent as both one of the best hitters in the game and one of the best pitchers. The postseason run was a reminder, as Jeff Passan wrote after Ohtani’s three-homer game in the NLCS, “that one of the greatest athletes in the world, and the most talented baseball player ever, is playing right now, doing unfathomable things, redefining the game in real time.”

It raises the question: How does Ohtani’s five-year stretch compare to the best five-year runs in MLB history? Is this the greatest ever? This is an impossible question to answer, but let’s explore it by picking one player to represent each decade and see how he compares to Ohtani. While we’ll focus on overall value, there are other pieces, like championships and achievements, that are part of the equation.

We’ll start with Ohtani and then go back to the 1900s and go decade by decade. The point here isn’t so much to declare the “winner” but to look at baseball’s best side by side, so consider the arguments we lay out and make your own proclamation.

Shohei Ohtani, DH/SP, 2021-25: 45.2 WAR

Five-year average: .285 BA, 171 OPS+, 47 HR, 104 RBIs, 115 R, 27 SB, 6.0 WAR

Four-year pitching average: 9-4, 2.84 ERA, 119 IP, 87 H, 151 SO, 151 ERA+, 3.8 WAR

Led league: 3x WAR, 2x R, 2x HR, 3x OPS

Achievements: 3x MVP, 2x WS champ, 50/50 season

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +8.4% (Aaron Judge)

The case for Ohtani: He does it all. He hits for power, including back-to-back 50-homer seasons. He steals bases, notching the first 50/50 season in MLB history in 2024. He hits for average in a low-average era, ranking second in the NL in 2024 and fourth in the American League in 2023.

Over the past five seasons, he’s second in the majors in home runs, first in runs, fourth in RBIs, second in OPS, first in total bases and seventh in stolen bases. Oh, and he has done a little pitching on the side, going 35-17 with a 2.84 ERA. Despite not pitching at all in 2024 and not throwing that many innings in 2025, he’s still 14th in pitching WAR since 2021. All told, his offense accounts for 30.2 WAR and his pitching for 15.2 WAR. Throw in two World Series titles and four MVP awards to go with the two-way performance and we’ve never seen anything like it.

The case against Ohtani: As we’ll see, Ohtani’s five-year WAR total — while obviously outstanding — is not at the top of this list. It’s not even in the top five. Value is value, no extra credit here just because he has been outstanding on both sides of the ball. And looming over his shoulder is this fact: Judge has had the higher WAR in three of the five seasons:

2022: 10.8 to 9.6
2024: 10.8 to 9.2
2025: 9.7 to 7.7

Can you have the greatest five-year stretch of all time when Judge is right there putting up his own historic seasons? Ohtani has been more valuable overall — and, of course, has won the titles that have eluded Judge — but it’s close.

OK, now let’s turn back the clock …

Honus Wagner, SS, 1905-1909: 49.2 WAR

Five-year average: .349 BA, 183 OPS+, 6 HR, 93 RBIs, 101 R, 52 SB, 9.8 WAR

Led league: 5x WAR, 4x BA, 4x 2B, 2x RBI, 2x SB, 4x OPS

Achievements: 1x WS champ

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +40.6% (Nap Lajoie)

The case for Wagner over Ohtani: Wagner might be better known today for his ultra-rare baseball card that has sold for as high as $7.25 million than his exploits on the field, but he dominated the NL in the first decade of the 20th century, retroactively leading NL position players in WAR all five seasons. The second-best position player in the majors was way behind Wagner, and only pitcher Christy Mathewson came within even 10 WAR of Wagner’s value over this stretch. His 1908 season is one of the all-time best: He hit .354 with a .957 OPS when the league average was .239 with a .605 OPS.

The case for Ohtani over Wagner: Wagner was fast, powerful and a well-conditioned athlete (he was an early proponent of weightlifting, with this five-year run starting when he was 31 years old), but the dead ball era was more than 100 years ago and it’s difficult to know how his game might transition to different eras of baseball. We don’t want to go too deep into making timeline adjustments, but that has to be a consideration in Ohtani’s favor.

Ty Cobb, CF, 1909-1913: 47.7 WAR

Five-year average: .396 BA, 198 OPS+, 7 HR, 95 RBIs, 112 R, 67 SB, 9.5 WAR

Led league: 3x WAR, 5x BA, 2x RBIs, 2x SB, 4x OPS

Achievements: 1x Triple Crown, 1x MVP

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +7.2% (Eddie Collins)

The case for Cobb over Ohtani: The man hit nearly .400 over this five-year period — including .419 in 1911 and .409 in 1912 — that featured mushy baseballs, pitchers throwing legal spitballs, and baggy wool uniforms soaked in dirt and sweat. As Joe Posnanski put it, “As a ballplayer, Cobb was his own species. … He was not just the dominant player [of his era]. He was the only one who mattered.” Cobb won a Triple Crown in 1909, and while home runs were scarce in the dead ball era, he still belted 79 extra-base hits in 1911, including 47 doubles and 24 triples. He mastered the science of small ball — at the plate and on the bases. In the first Hall of Fame election in 1936, it was Cobb — and not Babe Ruth or Wagner — who received the most votes.

The case for Ohtani over Cobb: As great as Cobb was, Collins wasn’t far behind in value in this stretch, and pitcher Walter Johnson was actually ahead. Joe Jackson put up similar offensive numbers in 1911 (.408) and 1912 (.395). Starting in 1912, Tris Speaker would lead the AL in WAR in three of the next five seasons, as he was close to Cobb as a hitter and better in the field. In other words, Cobb’s achievements weren’t quite singular, even if he did it in a singular, brilliant, aggressive fashion that was never forgotten.

Babe Ruth, RF/LF, 1920-24: 56.6 WAR

Five-year average: .370 BA, 229 OPS+, 47 HR, 131 RBIs, 145 R, .777 SLG, 11.3 WAR

Led league: 4x WAR, 1x BA, 4x HR, 3x RBIs, 5x OPS

Achievements: 1x MVP, 1x WS champ

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +14.3% (Rogers Hornsby)

The case for Ruth over Ohtani: You knew the Babe was going to pop up here, and his best five-year stretch begins with his first season with the New York Yankees, when he increased his own single-season home run record from 29 to 54 (and then to 59 in 1921). His 56.6 WAR during this five-year span is the highest of anyone on the list and well above Ohtani’s totals, achieved even with a down year — for him — in 1922, when he played 110 games and was worth 6.4 WAR after getting suspended for an unauthorized offseason barnstorming tour. He returned in 1923 to produce the highest single-season WAR for a position player on Baseball-Reference at 14.1, a year he hit .393 with 41 home runs. Let’s see Ohtani post a 14-WAR season.

The case for Ohtani over Ruth: There’s no doubt Ruth changed the game, from small ball to power ball, but even Ruth gave up pitching after less than two full seasons of doing both in 1918 and 1919. He would lead all players in WAR in every five-year stretch starting from 1920-24 through 1929-33, except 1921-25, when Hornsby topped him (50.1 to 48.2). Indeed, as great as Ruth was, Hornsby wasn’t too far behind as a hitter. From 1920 to 1924, Hornsby hit .395 with a 199 OPS+; from 1921 to 1925, he hit .402 with a 204 OPS+. Ruth also went just 1-2 in World Series in this stretch, so Ohtani has the edge in championships.

Joe DiMaggio, CF, 1937-41: 38.7 WAR

Five-year average: .350 BA, 168 OPS+, 34 HR, 138 RBIs, 121 R, .638 SLG, 7.7 WAR

Led league: 3x WAR, 2x BA, 1x HR

Achievements: 2x MVP, 4x WS champ, 56-game hit streak

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +16.9% (Johnny Mize)

The case for DiMaggio over Ohtani: DiMaggio was the ultimate winner: In his 13 years in the majors, he played in 10 World Series, winning nine times, including going 4-for-4 in this stretch. In these five years, he finished second, sixth, first, third and first, respectively, in the MVP voting. He had more home runs than strikeouts over all five seasons (169 home runs, 121 strikeouts) and holds perhaps the greatest — or at least the most famous — record in baseball history, his 56-game hitting streak in 1941.

The case for Ohtani over DiMaggio: When you dig into the advanced metrics, DiMaggio’s value just isn’t quite as impressive as some other players here. This was a high offensive era, so DiMaggio’s adjusted OPS topped out at 185 in 1941 — a figure Ohtani matched in 2023, beat in 2024 and just missed in 2025. DiMaggio’s total WAR is also lowest on the list. The Yankees won all four World Series in this period, but DiMaggio didn’t hit particularly well at .278/.316/.403 with 10 RBIs in 18 games. Oh, and while Ohtani stole 59 bases in 2024, DiMaggio stole 30 in his entire career.

Ted Williams, LF, 1941-48: 49.3 WAR

Five-year average: .362 BA, 212 OPS+, 34 HR, 124 RBIs, 133 R, .508 OBP, 9.9 WAR

Led league: 4x WAR, 4x BA, 3x HR, 2x RBIs, 5x OPS

Achievements: 1x MVP, 2x Triple Crown

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +51.2% (DiMaggio)

The case for Williams over Ohtani: Williams’ peak was interrupted by three missing seasons while he served in World War II (as was the case with DiMaggio), but we’ll give him credit for his five consecutive seasons played when he towered over the sport, at least in value: an incredible 50% higher WAR than DiMaggio over the five seasons in question, the largest gap on the list. In 1941, he became the last player to hit .400. While he won just one MVP award in these years, he finished second three times and third in the other year — not winning it in either Triple Crown season or the year he hit .406. Williams famously said he wanted to be known as the greatest hitter who ever lived. He might have been.

The case for Ohtani over Williams: No rings. That was the knock against Williams while he was active, especially in comparison to DiMaggio, as Williams played in just one World Series in 1946. (The Boston Red Sox lost in seven games.) He was indifferent in the field and on the basepaths. While Ohtani has become one of the most riveting players in the sport — even having his dog “throw” out the first pitch at a Dodgers game — Williams never connected with the fans in the same way. “Though we thumped, wept, and chanted ‘We want Ted’ for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back,” John Updike wrote in his essay on Williams’ final home game. “Gods do not answer letters.”

Mickey Mantle, CF, 1954-58: 47.7 WAR

Five-year average: .325 BA, 191 OPS+, 38 HR, 104 RBIs, 126 R, .451 OBP, 9.5 WAR

Led league: 4x WAR, 1x BA, 3x HR, 2x OPS

Achievements: 2x MVP, 1x Triple Crown, 2x WS champ

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +4.1% (Willie Mays)

The case for Mantle over Ohtani: If part of the answer to our question is some undefinable combination of popularity, adoration and just pure presence, then Mantle rises to the top of the list. Until his knees went bad, he could run like the wind, regarded as the fastest player in the game. Nobody hit longer home runs — and he did it from both sides of the plate. “No man in the history of baseball had as much power as Mickey Mantle,” Billy Martin, his teammate on the Yankees, once said. Mantle’s Triple Crown season in 1956 — .353, 52 home runs, 130 RBIs, 11.3 WAR — is one of the greatest seasons ever. He matched that with another 11.3-WAR season in 1957, when he hit .363. He had a .935 OPS in 23 World Series games in this period.

The case for Ohtani over Mantle: Well, Billy Martin never saw Ohtani hit home runs — like the home run he hit in the National League Championship Series that became the eighth to ever leave Dodger Stadium. If only we could add Mantle’s 1961 season (10.5 WAR) to his 1955-58 peak, rather than using 1954 (6.9 WAR) or 1959 (6.6 WAR). Of course, even then, Mays would still be right there alongside him in value. The Yankees went 2-2 in the World Series in this period, losing twice when Mantle missed games with injuries. That speaks to his value but also to his inability to always be at his best.

Willie Mays, CF, 1962-66: 52.3 WAR

Five-year average: .304 BA, 169 OPS+, 45 HR, 114 RBIs, 117 R, .601 SLG, 10.5 WAR

Led league: 5x WAR, 3x HR, 2x SLG, 2x OPS

Achievements: 1x MVP, 5x Gold Glove

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +30% (Henry Aaron)

The case for Mays over Ohtani: Whoa … 30% better than Aaron? 53% more valuable than Frank Robinson? 64% more valuable than Roberto Clemente? And this is when they were all still in their peak years. Yes, Willie could ball. This stretch includes four 10-WAR seasons, and while Mays won just one MVP award, the voters could have given it to him every season. Amazingly, this also covers Mays’ age-31-to-age-35 seasons, a testament to his conditioning and durability. “I think I was the best ballplayer I ever saw,” Mays himself would say after he retired. He might be right. His five-year WAR trails only Ruth on this list and easily beats Ohtani.

The case for Ohtani over Mays: There’s no denying Mays’ all-around brilliance, but even adjusted for the low offensive environment of this period, he wasn’t as valuable a hitter as some others here and is basically equal to Ohtani: Mays created about 267 more runs than the average hitter while Ohtani is at 260. Does Mays’ defense in center field trump Ohtani’s pitching? You could also argue the biggest star in the game over these five seasons was Sandy Koufax, who won three Cy Young Awards and two World Series. (Mays’ Giants played in one in this period and lost.)

Joe Morgan, 2B, 1972-76: 47.8 WAR

Five-year average: .303 BA, 163 OPS+, 22 HR, 85 RBIs, 113 R, 62 SB, 9.6 WAR

Led league: 4x WAR, 4x OBP, 2x OPS

Achievements: 2x MVP, 4x Gold Glove, 2x WS champ

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +36.6% (Bobby Grich)

The case for Morgan over Ohtani: Perhaps the most underrated all-time great player, Morgan excelled in secondary skills: He averaged 118 walks per season in this period, stole bases at a high percentage and won four Gold Gloves. His power numbers don’t jump out, but this was a low-offense period, with the NL averaging just 4.06 runs per game from 1972 to 1976. (The MLB average in 2025 was 4.45.) Morgan’s 1.020 OPS in 1976 was more than 100 points higher than the next guy. It all added up to an enormously valuable player who was head and shoulders above the No. 2 player in WAR over this period. Oh, and like the Dodgers, the Cincinnati Reds won back-to-back World Series in 1975 and 1976, Morgan’s two MVP years.

The case for Ohtani over Morgan: OK, we understand now that Morgan was underappreciated in his own time and his skills more subtle than obvious, but it’s also true that in the 1970s, his Reds teammates Johnny Bench and Pete Rose were regarded as the bigger stars. In terms of raw numbers, Ohtani wins in a landslide: Morgan hit 108 home runs and drove in 427 runs compared with 233 and 522 for Ohtani (and Ohtani’s adjusted OPS was also higher). Again, it’s a question of whether Morgan’s defense and position was more valuable than Ohtani’s pitching.

Mike Schmidt, 3B, 1977-81: 39.5 WAR

Five-year average: .274 BA, 157 OPS+, 37 HR, 101 RBIs, 100 R, 7.9 WAR

Led league: 3x WAR, 2x HR, 2x OPS

Achievements: 2x MVP, 5x Gold Glove, 1x WS champ

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +15.2% (George Brett)

The case for Schmidt over Ohtani: As Bill James once wrote of Schmidt, “True, he didn’t hit .320. If he had, he would be the greatest player who ever lived.” Schmidt was a 2020s-type player — a Three True Outcomes slugger — trapped in an era of big, multipurpose stadiums. If he had played in a different era, like today’s with smaller parks, he would have had a bunch of 50-home run seasons. (He led the NL eight times in home runs over his career.) Schmidt also drew 100 walks a year, won 10 Gold Gloves and is regarded as the greatest third baseman of all time.

The case for Ohtani over Schmidt: Ohtani’s total value easily eclipsed Schmidt’s run. Indeed, it was difficult coming up with a player to represent the 1980s. Rickey Henderson spread out his three best seasons (1980, 1985, 1990). Wade Boggs had a great five-year stretch from 1985 to 1989, when he averaged 8.4 WAR, but nobody would call Boggs the player of the decade. As for Schmidt, his best season would have been 1981 — when he hit .316, the only time he hit .300, and his second of back-to-back MVP years — but the strike interrupted the season, and he played just 102 games. If we could pick Schmidt’s five best nonconsecutive seasons, he’d have a better argument.

Barry Bonds, LF, 1990-94: 42.9 WAR

Five-year average: .310 BA, 185 OPS+, 35 HR, 107 RBIs, 105 R, 38 SB, 8.6 WAR

Led league: 4x WAR, 1x HR, 1x RBIs, 4x OPS

Achievements: 3x MVP, 5x Gold Glove

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: 26.9% (Ken Griffey Jr.)

The case for 1990s Bonds over Ohtani: Let’s call this Bonds I. For most of the decade, the argument was Bonds vs. Griffey. Well, even Griffey’s five best seasons from the 1990s (41.6 WAR) don’t quite match Bonds’ five-year run from 1990 to 1994, which includes the strike-shortened 1994 season. Bonds won three MVP awards (and probably should have won a fourth in 1991) and posted OPS+ figures over 200 in 1992 and 1993 — which Ohtani has never done. This Bonds was an annual Gold Glove winner and one of the best baserunners in the game (stealing as many as 52 bases in 1990).

The case for Ohtani over 1990s Bonds: As good as Bonds was, and as terrific as his all-around game was, Ohtani’s still had more value. And we have to factor in Ohtani’s two titles here versus Bonds’ zero. The Pittsburgh Pirates made the playoffs three straight years from 1990 to 1992, and Bonds completely flopped, hitting .191/.337/.265 with six RBIs in 20 games. Case closed.

Barry Bonds, 2000-04: 51.1 WAR

Five-year average: .339 BA, 241 OPS+, 52 HR, 109 RBIs, 123 R, 10.2 WAR

Led league: 4x WAR, 1x HR, 4x OPS

Achievements: 4x MVP, record 73 HRs

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +17.5% (Alex Rodriguez)

The case for 2000s Bonds over Ohtani: And now we have Bonds II, when he put up a five-year run at the plate that neither Ruth nor Williams even matched. In 2001, Bonds mashed 73 home runs with an 0.863 slugging percentage. The next year, he hit .370 with a .582 OBP. He “slumped” all the way to .341 with a 1.278 OPS in 2003 and then hit .362 with 232 walks, a .609 (!) OBP and 1.422 OPS in 2004. The numbers don’t seem real. His combined WAR, including 11.9 in 2001, 11.7 in 2002 and 10.6 in 2004, is third behind Ruth and Mays and still significantly ahead of Ohtani. Bonds is the only player to win four straight MVP awards — oh, and he finished second the year he didn’t win.

The case for Ohtani over 2000s Bonds: Well, Bonds didn’t pitch. His defense and baserunning had declined. He still didn’t win — although the San Francisco Giants did reach the World Series in 2002 and Bonds had one of the best postseasons ever. And he certainly couldn’t match Ohtani in popularity.

Five-year average: .310 BA, 173 OPS+, 33 HR, 96 RBIs, 116 R, 28 SB, 9.4 WAR

Led league: 5x WAR, 4x R, 1x RBIs, 1x SB, 1x OPS

Achievements: 2x MVP

WAR percentage over No. 2 player in span: +44.9% (Robinson Cano)

The case for Trout over Ohtani: Young Trout was truly something, deservedly drawing comparisons to the best players of all time, starting with a 10.5-WAR season as a rookie in 2012 and another 10.4-WAR season in 2016 (both figures slightly higher than Ohtani’s best of 10.0). He won his two MVPs in this stretch and finished second in the voting the other three years. He hit for average, drew walks, stole bases and played solid defense. (And when the ball got a little livelier later in the decade, his OPS would climb even higher.) His five-year WAR crushes Cano, the No. 2 position player, and also beats out Ohtani’s five-year total. While the Los Angeles Angels made the playoffs only in 2014, Trout was still unquestionably viewed as the best player in the game, a title he would hold down all the way through 2019, when he captured his third MVP award. Alas, injuries would mar his career after that.

The case for Ohtani over Trout: Ohtani left the Angels, Trout stayed. The two World Series titles add a vital element to Ohtani’s legacy and stardom that Trout will always lack. As good as Trout was, it’s also probably fair to say he lacked the magnetism of Ohtani (or the charisma of Griffey, to whom he was so often compared early on).

TORONTO — A 66-year-old man with a pierced left ear and a backward cap stood in the outfield at Rogers Centre early Sunday morning and beheld all that surrounded him. Tri-color confetti littered the turf, the videoboard in center field touted the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ latest World Series championship, and Osamu Yada — the man who made it all possible — grinned at his great fortune.

Yada Sensei, as he is known, plays a number of roles for Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whose performance in Los Angeles’ 5-4 victory in Game 7 of the World Series will go down in the annals of baseball history. Yada is a biomechanist first and foremost, obsessive about how the body’s movement patterns apply force to a baseball. Beyond that, he is a philosophical guru, a bridge between the ocean-wide chasm that separates Japanese baseball, where Yamamoto formed his foundation, and American baseball, where he erected his masterwork upon it.

“He’s the person who built me,” Yamamoto said.

What Yada shaped blossomed into something mythical during an all-time great World Series that culminated with a Game 7 for the ages, requiring 11 nerve-wracking, drama-filled innings. Working on no rest after a six-inning, 96-pitch effort to set up the Dodgers for a Game 6 victory and send the series to a winner-takes-all seventh game, Yamamoto materialized from the Dodgers’ bullpen to spread 34 pitches over 2⅔ scoreless innings and secure the win that delivered Los Angeles its second consecutive championship and third in six years. All of that on the heels of Yamamoto’s complete-game triumph in Game 2, which followed a start-to-finish effort in his previous outing in the National League Championship Series.

The only other pitcher in baseball history to chase a Game 6 start with a Game 7 relief outing on zero days’ rest and emerge with victories in both was Randy Johnson in the 2001 World Series, widely regarded among the best ever. Both pitchers won World Series MVP awards, riding fastballs that neared triple digits and off-speed pitches that bedeviled the hitters hubristic enough to offer at them. The similarities end there. At 5-foot-10, Yamamoto stands a full foot shorter than Johnson, who leveraged his size into five Cy Young Awards and a first-ballot Hall of Fame induction. Yamamoto, at 170 pounds, learned through Yada to find his power from the place where body meets nature and the two coalesce harmoniously.

“Think about a tree,” Yada said. “A tree has a trunk, it has branches, it has roots. In the sports world, we tell people to move their hands this way, their feet this way, and that’s just moving the branches. The most important thing with the tree is the trunk. It can’t just be firm, either. If the trunk is hollow, then it might just snap in half easily. So you can think about what I’m doing as building a strong trunk that can stand up to strong rain and wind. There’s nothing wrong with any individual thing that’s being taught over here. It’s just that I’m trying to have a perspective of the whole, and I don’t give him any specific instruction on any individual thing. Just trying to keep an eye on the whole, the bigger vision.”

That vision registered 20/10 during this postseason, a monthlong love letter to baseball. The 2025 World Series started with the Blue Jays, seeking their first championship since 1993, dropping a nine-run inning and sending the whole of Rogers Centre into a frenzy and ended with the Dodgers salvaging their season with a game-tying home run from the unlikeliest hitter with one out in the ninth inning and going ahead with another homer in the 11th. It dispensed memorable moments like an IV drip, consistent and satiating. For Game 7 to live up to the standard set by the previous six, which included an 18-inning classic Game 3 won by the Dodgers on a walk-off home run and a star-making Game 5 by Toronto rookie right-hander Trey Yesavage, only reinforced the 121st World Series’ place among its most extolled brethren.

With their pitching running on fumes, the Dodgers had turned to Shohei Ohtani, Yamamoto’s countryman and the finest talent the game has ever seen, to start Game 7 on three days’ rest. In the third inning, Bo Bichette blasted a 442-foot, three-run home run off him, igniting the 44,713 in attendance and forcing Los Angeles into scramble mode. Things got hairy in the fourth, when Justin Wrobleski hit Andrés Giménez with an up-and-in pitch that prompted the benches and bullpens to clear. The tension intensified in the eighth, when a Max Muncy solo home run cut Los Angeles’ deficit to 4-3. And it never relented during the game’s final innings, when the Dodgers, who batted .203 and were outscored 34-26 in the series, turned to Yamamoto to play savior.

All the while, Yada remained calm, a palliative presence. While Yada says to “just think of me as a loudmouth grandpa,” he is the key that unlocked the whole of Yamamoto. During a presentation to Dodgers employees in the spring of 2024, Yamamoto’s first with the team after signing a 12-year, $325 million contract upon his departure from Nippon Professional Baseball’s Orix Buffaloes, Yada tried to explain Yamamoto’s training habits using comparisons from the world of anime. Yamamoto, he said, was like Goku in “Dragon Ball Z” or One-Punch Man, what they do and who they are indistinguishable. Yamamoto was forever seeking to harness the power of nature that takes a man and makes him something more.

“There are things that are natural in nature, and then there are things that are normal in the sports world,” Yada said. “And what I’ve been able to do is teach Yoshinobu about things that occur in the natural world. And because the general philosophies and the things that are accepted are so different when you look at it from a sporting sense, it seems like something that’s outrageous.”

IN OSAKA, JAPAN, sits a two-story building, about 1,200 square feet total, that serves as the nerve center of Yada’s operation — “Japan’s No. 1 Spiritual and Physical Strength Shop,” its website proudly states. The path to growth, the site says, is through tariki hongan (relying on other power) and jiriki hongan (self-reliance). Yada ends every post on the website with the same two sentences: “I hope you have a good day today. Don’t forget your childhood and pursue your dreams!”

Yamamoto met Yada in Osaka, where the pitcher arrived in 2017 as an 18-year-old selected in the fourth round of the NPB draft by the Buffaloes. Yada works outside the professional-baseball infrastructure in Japan and is regarded by some as an interloper. In Yamamoto, he found a willing and eager pupil. With a natural curiosity and voracious work ethic, Yamamoto’s greatest quality, Yada said, was his patience.

“Yoshinobu will say things like, ‘I want to be able to do this,’ ” Yada said. “And I’ll tell him, ‘OK, in two years you’ll be able to do that.’ And then in two years he is actually able to do that.”

Within two years of joining the Buffaloes, Yamamoto was a fixture in their rotation and atop ERA leaderboards in NPB. He won the Sawamura Award, given to the best starting pitcher in Japan, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, the first to capture three consecutive in more than 60 years. During the 2023 season, his closest friend, Yoichi Ishihara, spent the summer in Toronto to be able to tell Yamamoto what life in a major league city looked like. Yamamoto had conquered Japanese baseball and set his eyes on the big leagues.

For years, Dodgers scouts had admired him. They marveled not only at his stuff but the methods that extracted it from him. Yamamoto was the antithesis of the muscled-up, high-effort pitchers the American youth-development system churned out. He never lifted a weight under Yada’s tutelage. Instead, they focused on mobility and balance, breathing and pliability. He did handstands and threw mini-soccer balls. Yada introduced him to a featherweight javelin so light that any deviation from proper mechanical sequencing would cause it to flutter and die. Over time, Yamamoto learned to launch it great distances with a delicate touch.

“It’s easy to use one muscle at 100% output,” Yada said, “but what Yoshinobu is trying to do is to use 600 different muscles at 10% output. You can’t think about 600 things at once and throw. So it’s learning to prioritize which parts of the movement are the most important. And learning to have that conversation with yourself about where there might be imbalances and how to correct those things.

“We often talk about moving specific joints in certain ways, and when you try to approach what we’re trying to do, you always run into these conflicts between various things. The way of approaching things that way can be explained by Newtonian physics. What he’s trying to do is explained more by Eastern philosophies. And so it’s difficult to find a common language, and it’s difficult to talk about.”

Front office executives and scouts flocked to Osaka in 2023, aware that Yamamoto was likely to enter Major League Baseball’s posting system — the portal through which Japanese players are transferred to big league teams — that forthcoming winter. Yada invited officials to his headquarters to better understand the ideology that seemed so foreign.

“Watching people work at his clinic in Osaka is special,” said Galen Carr, the Dodgers’ vice president of player personnel and a fixture in international scouting. “They do things with their bodies — contortions and twisting and balance and strength — and it’s body weight, not stuff we do here. And somehow that kid throws 98 and he’s 5-10. … Maybe we can learn something from him.”

Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations, wasn’t sold until he saw it himself. At the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, he watched Yamamoto long-toss from the right-field corner to home plate. Yamamoto wasn’t taking crow hops or hurling parabolic throws. “I wish someone had videoed me watching that before the game,” Friedman said, “because my mouth was agape.” Even if the list of short, slim, front-line right-handed pitchers could be counted on one hand, the Dodgers were already perfectly happy to get into the outlier business, giving Ohtani a 10-year, $700 million contract Dec. 9.

The 45-day posting window for Yamamoto had opened by then, and a bidding frenzy was underway. What started in the $175 million range quickly ascended past $200 million. The New York Mets, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies felt the same way about Yamamoto as the Dodgers. They looked past the questions of whether he was too short or his hands too small to spin a major league ball. They believed.

The shockwaves from his contract rippled with similar ferocity to Ohtani’s. At least Ohtani had dominated MLB for six years and won a pair of MVPs. Yamamoto hadn’t thrown a single big league pitch, and the Dodgers guaranteed him more money than any pitcher in the game’s history. And when he arrived at spring training flanked by a sexagenarian whose standard uniform was a blazer over a T-shirt, teammates initially side-eyed him, struggling to fathom the multitudes Yamamoto contained.

Soon enough they cherished the whole of Yamamoto. His diligence astounded them. His pitches — fastball, sinker, splitter, cutter, slider, curveball — wowed them. Yada endeared himself quickly to the rest of the pitching staff as well as former MVP Mookie Betts, all of whom learned to appreciate that behind the endless appetite for Sprite and lemonade and other break-room foodstuffs was a professor of the craft, someone set upon making Yamamoto every bit as good in MLB as he was in NPB.

“It’s the most meticulous game plan I’ve ever seen,” Dodgers right-hander Ben Casparius said. “He’s the best, purest pitcher I’ve ever seen in my life. And I don’t think it’s close.”

The ups and downs of Yamamoto’s debut season — he spent three months on the injured list with arm issues — vanished by the postseason last year, when he helped carry an injury-depleted Los Angeles to a championship. He resisted the urge to alter his training methodologies over the winter, sticking with Yada’s program and long tossing almost daily. Greatness found him this season, when he finished fourth in MLB with a 2.49 ERA over 173⅔ innings, and his back-to-back complete games in the playoffs marked the first such feat for pitchers in nearly a quarter century.

It was no surprise, then, that Yamamoto volunteered to pitch in Game 7 a day after he kept Los Angeles’ season alive. Following Game 6, Friedman received a text from Will Ireton, the team’s interpreter, that indicated Yamamoto was receiving treatment with the intention of pitching the next day. Yada indicated that Friedman need not worry about injury or effectiveness. Yamamoto’s stuff was going to be the same regardless of rest. Another text arrived Saturday morning, saying trainers were preparing Yamamoto to pitch, and one more after he played catch, affirming his ability to get meaningful outs for manager Dave Roberts.

Still, the entire conceit felt too good to be true, a self-laid trap-in-waiting. Even if Yamamoto did enter the game, how long could he go? How sore would his arm feel? As much as the Dodgers believed in Yamamoto and Yada Sensei, surely there were limits to the power of their partnership.

At 11:31 p.m., after one of the most implausible home runs in World Series history, they would learn the answer.

DURING THE ON-FIELD celebration of Los Angeles’ 3-1 victory in Game 6, teammates moshed around Miguel Rojas, who had caught a dart of a throw from Kiké Hernández to complete a game-ending double play. Amid the hugs and backslaps, Rojas felt a sharp pain in his rib area. The timing could not have been worse.

The 36-year-old Rojas spent nearly a decade in the minor leagues before debuting with the Dodgers in 2014. Los Angeles traded him to the Marlins that winter — in a deal that sent Hernández back to the Dodgers — and saw him grow into a beloved utility man, the conscience of the clubhouse. He returned to Los Angeles in a January 2023 trade and spent the past three seasons as a versatile option for Roberts. He was slated to start at shortstop before Betts’ switch from outfield to the position resigned Rojas to a part-time role.

Nonetheless, Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow said, “Miggy is the glue of our team.” He wields the microphone on team flights and bus rides. He is, Glasnow said, “the curator of s–t-talking in the best possible way.” And in Game 6, with center fielder Andy Pages in an October-long slump, Rojas — without a hit since Oct. 1 — was named the starting second baseman and No. 9 hitter, with Roberts moving super-utility man Tommy Edman to center and benching Pages.

On Friday night, the revival of that lineup for Game 7 was in question. The Dodgers went to bed believing Rojas would not be available and that they might need to replace him on the roster with outfielder Michael Conforto. Rojas woke up Saturday morning still in pain. He went to the stadium at 1:30 p.m., received “a lot of meds and injections,” he said, and tested out the rib in the batting cage. The pain was dulled enough that Rojas told Roberts he wanted to play. Roberts acceded. Rojas took another round of painkillers before first pitch and found himself at the plate in the ninth inning, with the Dodgers trailing, 4-3, and one out.

What happened next defined a Dodgers team outhit, outscored and outplayed by the Blue Jays for the majority of the series. Rojas was looking for a fastball from Toronto closer Jeff Hoffman to hit up the middle. He swung over a first-pitch slider in the dirt. Hoffman bounced a slider and fastball to move the count to 2-1 before Rojas fouled off a pair of fastballs. He stared at a slider just above the strike zone to work the count full. On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Hoffman hung a slider. And Rojas, who in 4,159 career plate appearances has hit only 57 home runs, uncorked a swing for eternity.

Only once before had a player in Game 7 of the World Series hit a game-tying or go-ahead home run in the ninth inning or later. As the ball sailed into the Blue Jays’ bullpen in left field, Rojas joined Bill Mazeroski, author of the homer that ended the 1960 World Series. The score was 4-4. The World Series that had played even for six games had reached that state in the ninth inning of its seventh.

“When he wasn’t getting his playing time, he went to the coaches and said, ‘Hey, how can I help out?’ ” Muncy said. “And he did everything that they asked him to do. He’s the ultimate team guy, and for him to get that home run to tie it up — it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.”

The tears of joy nearly morphed into those of sadness come the bottom of the inning. Bichette singled with one out off Dodgers starter Blake Snell, on in relief, and was pinch run for by Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Addison Barger drew a walk in a nine-pitch plate appearance. Roberts went to the mound. The bullpen door swung open. Out came Yamamoto.

“My heart was jumping out of my chest,” said Ishihara, Yamamoto’s close friend, “because I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

On his first pitch to Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk, Yamamoto ripped a 93-mph splitter for a strike. Immediately it was clear Yada was correct: the quality of Yamamoto’s stuff would not be a question. His command of it, on the other hand, was tested on the next pitch, a sinker that ran inside and clipped Kirk’s hand, loading the bases for Blue Jays center fielder Daulton Varsho.

Roberts’ strategic acumen, honed over nearly 120 postseason games, went into overdrive. He inserted Pages, a better defender with a far better arm than Edman, into center field, knowing a sacrifice fly could end the World Series. He pulled the infield in. And he let Yamamoto and catcher Will Smith go to work, knowing they needed to keep the ball down in the strike zone and hopefully induce a groundball. A splitter missed low. Varsho fouled off another. He stared at a 97 mph fastball for strike two. And on a third splitter, at the bottom of the zone and away from the left-handed Varsho, he yanked a grounder toward Rojas, who reached across his body to snag it — the pain searing in his side — and made an off-balance throw home. Had Kiner-Falefa taken even a one-step secondary lead off third base, he would have been safe. He didn’t. Smith leaned to grab Rojas’ throw that just beat a sliding Kiner-Falefa for the force.

Toronto wasn’t done. Ernie Clement stepped to the plate. He already had three hits, pushing him past Randy Arozarena for tops on the single-postseason hit list with 30. And he golfed a first-pitch Yamamoto curveball into deep left-center field. Pages and Hernández converged and collided, just as the ball settled into Pages’ glove. Hernández lay face down on the warning track, convinced the ball had skittered away and the series was over. Pages asked him if he was OK. Hernández wasn’t, because he thought they’d lost the World Series. Instead, Game 7 was headed to extra innings.

Like Toronto the previous half-inning, Los Angeles loaded the bases in the 10th with one out. Pages grounded into a force play at home, and three pitches later, reliever Seranthony Dominguez fielded a flip from first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., danced around the first-base bag and toe-tapped it just before Hernández’s foot struck. Replay review upheld the call and sent the game to the bottom of the 10th, when Yamamoto emerged from the dugout for a second inning of work. He sat down three hitters on 13 pitches and surpassed Johnson’s four relief outs the day after his Game 6 start.

With a chance to play hero again in the top of the 11th, Rojas grounded out to third and, with the pain meds wearing off, felt a twinge in his side in the process. Ohtani, so brilliant all postseason, the one hitter upon whom the Dodgers could rely, grounded out. Up stepped Smith, who entered the postseason with a hairline fracture in his right hand. Elevated to the No. 2 spot because of Betts’ struggles, Smith worked the count to 2-0 against Toronto’s Game 5 starter, Shane Bieber, like so many others cosplaying as a reliever, and got a slider that settled in the middle of the zone. He did not miss. One step out of the batter’s box, he yelled, “Go ball,” imploring it to breach the fence. The ball bounced from the bullpen into the stands. Los Angeles led, 5-4.

“I’m just hoping I got enough,” Smith said. “I knew I hit it pretty good. But we’ve hit a lot of balls hard here in this stadium that just haven’t got out. They just kind of came up a little short. So it was nice to finally get one.”

The Dodgers’ ninth championship beckoned, and Yamamoto emerged from the dugout to put the ultimate stamp on it. Pitching is about milliseconds and millimeters. Any minuscule change in timing, movement, grip and dozens of other factors runs the risk of frying a pitcher’s wiring. No such concern existed with Yamamoto, even in circumstances unfathomable to other pitchers. He is unbothered. He made himself for this moment.

“He put on his cape,” Hernández said, “and he took us to the promised land.”

A Guerrero leadoff double in the 11th, followed by a Kiner-Falefa sacrifice to get him to third with one out? It happens. A Barger walk on four splitters out of the zone? No worries. Because after getting Kirk down 0-2 on a cutter and curveball, Yamamoto unleashed a splitter — the pitch brought back into vogue by Japanese pitchers — and shattered Kirk’s bat. The ball trickled toward Betts, who scurried over to second, stepped on the bag with his left foot and flipped the ball to Freddie Freeman for the first World Series-ending double play since 1947.

“It’s about betting on players and people,” Roberts said. “There’s this narrative where people think that we’re scripting s— based on numbers, and it couldn’t be further from that. There’s a separation between the regular season, where the numbers make sense, the long view, but then when you’re trying to win 13 games, it’s about players and people and who you’re going to bet on. It’s not all about the matchups.

“I bet on Yama because I just felt there’s just something inside of his soul that I completely believed in. And even Miggy Ro in a different context, where everything says you hit for him, I just believed that he was going to do something special.”

ON THE DAY of Game 7, the Instagram page for Yada Sensei’s clinic posted three emojis of people bowing with sheepish looks on their faces. Above them was a message in Japanese thanking its patients for their patronage and informing them Yada will soon return to Osaka and that he will start taking appointments Nov. 5.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by our prolonged business trip,” the post said.

Describing the greatest World Series as a “prolonged business trip” encapsulates how Yada sees himself, an ethos he has passed along to Yamamoto. What the Dodgers so adore about Yamamoto is just how normal he is. For all of the novelties of his training, he is a regular dude. He loves his dog. He cracks jokes.

“He’s genuine. He’s responsible. He’s very straightforward,” Yada said. “He doesn’t lose sight of his dreams.”

Dreams are important to Yada, windows into the ethereal place where he believes athletes must go to mine the materials within. In the end, all of the Dodgers unearthed that in a season that started March 18 in Japan and ended just after midnight Nov. 2 in Canada. They won 93 games, cruised through the National League bracket and ran into a Blue Jays unit certain destiny was riding shotgun until its engine faltered. Los Angeles became the first team to win two straight World Series since the New York Yankees triumphed three straight years from 1998-2000. The Dodgers sent Clayton Kershaw, their Hall of Fame ace, into retirement with his third ring and prevented Max Scherzer, Kershaw’s nearest modern analog and Toronto’s Game 7 starter, from winning his third. Los Angeles did it with talent, and with persistence, and with $500 million-plus in salaries and taxes, every dollar spent worth it, particularly the $16 million this year that went to Yamamoto.

“For him to do three ups and hold his stuff the way he did — it was every bit as good as it was in Game 6 — is literally the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen on a Major League Baseball field,” Friedman said.

At the Dodgers’ party following the win, highlights from the night played on a screen and the high of the night never lost its sheen. Yamamoto was feted as a legend, a hero, but all that mattered, Yada said, is “he just really, really wanted to be a champion with his teammates.”

He is, for the second time, still on that path to growth, embracing tariki hongan from the 25 men surrounding him and manifesting jiriki hongan with his own will, desire, fortitude. It’s true, yes, that Yada built Yoshinobu Yamamoto into what he is today. But outrageous things take more than a sensei or a code. They take a man willing to do things others wouldn’t dare dream of.

Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have scrapped plans to break their manifesto pledge and raise income tax rates in a massive U-turn less than two weeks from the budget.

The decision, first reported in the Financial Times, comes after a bruising few days which has brought about a change of heart in Downing Street.

Read more: How No 10 plunged itself into crisis

I understand Downing Street has backed down amid fears about the backlash from disgruntled MPs and voters.

The Treasury and Number 10 declined to comment.

The decision is a massive about-turn. In a news conference last week, the chancellor appeared to pave the way for manifesto-breaking tax rises in the budget on 26 November.

She spoke of difficult choices and insisted she could neither increase borrowing nor cut spending in order to stabilise the economy, telling the public “everyone has to play their part”.

The decision to backtrack was communicated to the Office for Budget Responsibility on Wednesday in a submission of “major measures”, according to the Financial Times.

The chancellor will now have to fill an estimated £30bn black hole with a series of narrower tax-raising measures and is also expected to freeze income tax thresholds for another two years beyond 2028, which should raise about £8bn.

Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “We’ve had the longest ever run-up to a budget, damaging the economy with uncertainty, and yet – with just days to go – it is clear there is chaos in No 10 and No 11.”

How did we get here?

For weeks, the government has been working up options to break the manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT on working people.

I was told only this week the option being worked up was to do a combination of tax rises and action on the two-child benefit cap in order for the prime minister to be able to argue that in breaking his manifesto pledges, he is trying his hardest to protect the poorest in society and those “working people” he has spoken of so endlessly.

But days ago, officials and ministers were working on a proposal to lift the basic rate of income tax – perhaps by 2p – and then simultaneously cut national insurance contributions for those on the basic rate of income tax (those who earn up to £50,000 a year).

That way the chancellor can raise several billion in tax from those with the “broadest shoulders” – higher-rate taxpayers and pensioners or landlords, while also trying to protect “working people” earning salaries under £50,000 a year.

The chancellor was also going to take action on the two-child benefit cap in response to growing demand from the party to take action on child poverty. It is unclear whether those plans will now be shelved given the U-turn on income tax.

A rough week for the PM

The change of plan comes after the prime minister found himself engulfed in a leadership crisis after his allies warned rivals that he would fight any attempted post-budget coup.

It triggered a briefing war between Wes Streeting and anonymous Starmer allies attacking the health secretary as the chief traitor.

Read more: Is Starmer ‘in office but not in power’?

The prime minister has since apologised to Mr Streeting, who I am told does not want to press for sackings in No 10 in the wake of the briefings against him.

But the saga has further damaged Sir Keir and increased concerns among MPs about his suitability to lead Labour into the next general election.

Insiders clearly concluded that the ill mood in the party, coupled with the recent hits to the PM’s political capital, makes manifesto-breaking tax rises simply too risky right now.

But it also adds to a sense of chaos, given the chancellor publicly pitch-rolled tax rises in last week’s news conference.