Craig Tyson Adams

  The Los Angeles Angels are snake-bit. They are cursed. Somehow someway someone put a hex on them. Sure they won a world series once, but that was 20 years ago. It must’ve been because Disney got involved with them at the time. It was fantasyland for Angels fans. Maybe it was the baseball gods punishing the San Francisco Giants and Barry Bonds for crimes against baseball humanity. Bonds cheated to break the most hallowed records in the game. The Angels beating Bonds and the Giants was just a happy circumstance. But, I digress. Throughout the Angels history, they have had one misfortune after another plague them like the plague. Players have died. The team more than once snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They’ve had bus crashes and car accidents. I don’t know if it’s been more or less than other teams, but the Angels sure have had a lot. The latest is with the greatest player they have ever produced. The great Mike Trout was available for the club to draft because of a technic

  When Shohei Ohtani selected the Los Angeles Angels offer, it was like the baseball gods had finally smiled on the team. They finally won a championship in 2002 and they lucked into drafting the great Mike Trout in 2009, but signing Ohtani was a genuine gift. When he took off as a player last year they believed that he and Trout would form a nucleus that would send the Angels to the promised land. This season started out promisingly enough. But then there was a 14 game losing streak that cost manager Joe Maddon his job. Maddon was a coach for the Angels when they won the World Series. He was the manager of the Chicago Cubs when they ended a 108 year drought and became champions. The Angels went into a tailspin that they have shown no signs of coming out of. They were just swept by their cross-town rivals, the Dodgers. But to call it a rivalry is a misnomer. The Dodgers rudely treat the Angels like underlings. The Dodgers don’t know the rivalry exists. The time has come to face facts.

When Shohei Ohtani chose the Los Angeles Angels, it was like the baseball gods finally gave the ball club's fans a break. Not since the Angels lost out on Mark Teixeira and got the rights to draft Mike Trout as fortune shone on Angel Stadium.  Drafting Trout was a fluke of the rules. Shohei Ohtani choosing the Angels was a miracle. He did it because the club told him he could pitch and be a position player. That ruled out National League teams. Ohtani wanted to be a Dodger. But they weren’t prepared to let him do it.  In his first season, Shohei Ohtani became the first Major League Baseball player to make 10 starts as a pitcher and hit 20 home runs as a position player since Babe Ruth accomplished the feat in 1919. The Babe was not a two-way baseball player after that. His diet didn’t allow it. Shohei Ohtani was just getting started.  He has always been a meticulous conditioning zealot. As a youth in his native Japan, Ohtani became relentless and worked out hard. When drafted

Shohei Ohtani is the greatest player in Major League Baseball history. There. I said it. He’s not the sport’s greatest hitter. Barry Bonds is. He’s not baseball’s greatest pitcher. Randy Johnson is. Ohtani isn’t better than both individually. Otani can do baseball things those two singularly couldn’t do.  Ohtani is an extremely good hitter, particularly a power hitter, and he can steal bases as he possesses elite speed. He’s the best combination of both power and speed since Bonds when Bonds was in his prime. But, Bonds couldn’t throw a 97 mph moving heater and a wipe-out split-fingered fastball for strikes.  Shohei Ohtani is an effective pitcher. Actually, being effective is an understatement. He’s an excellent pitcher. He’s the best pitcher on the Los Angeles Angels staff, which isn’t saying much, but Otani was the starting pitcher in the Major League All-Star Game for the American League this year, while leading the league in triples. That’s crazy.  In all actuality, Ohtani isn’t