I didn’t plan on writing about baseball this week. My schedule has been fairly intense, and it won’t let up for at least another month. Unfortunately, when life gets busy, it’s often my baseball writing that takes a backseat. However, when a day like October 17th, 2025, comes along, the writing bug stirs to life and the creative juices begin aflowing.
For those who have spent any amount of time reading this site, you know that there has never been a doubt in my mind that Bullet Rogan was the best to ever lace up a pair of baseball cleats. Others were great, others transcended the game, but none of them came close to being the complete player that was Wilber “Bullet” Rogan. I’m not going to recite his career statistics, though; they are lofty and impressive. Stats only tell part of the story, and though I know some sabermetricians or more statistics-oriented baseball fans will disagree, accomplishments and impact tell just as important a story. When it came to the Bullet, the story was simple. His incredible stats were supported by championships, longevity, impact upon future generations, and his ability to do things on a baseball field at a level that others could only entertain in a fleeting dream. Rogan wasn’t just a two-way player; he dominated as a hitter and as a pitcher. He was the blueprint for a player who had never been seen before and could never truly be replicated after.
That is, until Shohei Ohtani came around. I know that some people are sick and tired of hearing about how great Ohtani is, and to those people, I say stop being such a curmudgeon. The overwhelming majority of us never got to see Rogan in action. Some folks who are still alive may have seen pale imitations like Leon Day or Babe Ruth, but Rogan’s exploits have long moved to the category of story and myth. We are getting to witness Ohtani overtake Rogan as the greatest to ever play the game in real-time, and it’s both an odd but exhilarating feeling.
Some folks have been on the Ohtani train since he first appeared on a Nippon Professional Baseball field. I don’t humble brag often, but I will humble brag that I was telling people Ohtani would dominate like no other from the very start. What most Major League Baseball fans either don’t know or refuse to accept is that in every possible way, NPB is a major league. Ohtani had already proven he could compete at the highest level, and there was never any question that he would continue to excel when switching from one major league in NPB to another major league in the American League of MLB. In fact, he was doing similar things to what he did to the Milwaukee Brewers to eliminate them from the National League Championship Series early in his career, as great BlueSky follow Daniel Brim pointed out,
https://bsky.app/profile/dbrim.com/post/3m3gx74ejy22o
What has finally convinced me that Ohtani isn’t just chasing Rogan down for the title of greatest of all time, but is now in fact alone at the top as the greatest of all time to ever play the game of baseball? Similar to Rogan, Ohtani’s stats are impressive, but they aren’t what put him into the greatest of all time spot. It’s those stats coupled with the dual fact that we can see him accomplishing what he is with our very own eyes and that his accomplishments have become a matter of fact. He just won himself an NLCS Most Valuable Player award on the strength of a game where he went three for three with three home runs while also pitching six shutout innings and striking out 10 hitters. Yet, for as amazing as that game is, it seems like it’s just more of the same from Ohtani.
It’s the otherworldly aspect of Ohtani’s greatness that sets him apart from everyone else who has ever played the game. Like Rogan, Ohtani is a complete player; he is great, and he has transcended the game. He’s also made the unbelievable not just believable, but expected. There’s a constant feeling with Ohtani that he will outdo his previous accomplishments and that he will do it with ease. That can’t be quantified in any data column, yet it still exists, and it’s why I feel safe in proclaiming Shohei Ohtani as the greatest baseball player of all time. Bask in his greatness while you can. We never got to see Bullet Rogan in his heyday, but we do get to see Ohtani in his; that’s not a gift we should waste.
Lead photo courtesy of Brynn Anderson – Associated Press
