American League MVP Shohei Ohtani has landed on not one but TWO All-MLB Teams. He’s on the first team as a designated hitter and the second team as a starting pitcher.

That’s wild.

In the long history of baseball we’ve seen very, very few players who can be elite at both hitting AND pitching. Your average high school game features players who’ve already decided to focus on one or the other; the guys who can successfully do both are quickly forced into specializing once they get to college or the minors.

But there WAS one giant of the game renowned for being adept at both, and that was Babe Ruth. He starred as a pitcher early in his career with the Red Sox but is most remembered for clobbering home runs with the New York Yankees.

Luckily for you dear reader, I live in Baltimore, the birthplace of Babe Ruth and, for the purpose of this probably cliched but still fun concept, the place where his eternal soul is resting.

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, there are no rules, so let’s head down to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum to rouse his eternal soul and get some thoughts on Ohtani.

BABE: Owwwwwww.

FTW: Wait, are you ok?

BABE: Just groggy. Hair of the dog?

FTW: You’ve been slumbering since 1948 and you’re *still* hungover?

BABE: You’ve heard the stories. Is that a brewery over there? Right near my old house?

FTW: It is. Suspended. Women-owned and operated. Really great beers.

BABE: Wait, wut.

FTW: Oh. Right. Yeah, women are allowed to do things now.

BABE: *stares blankly*

FTW: Anyway, wanted to get your thoughts on something as we walk over to this brewery since that is the direction you are headed and I can’t stop you because you’re a ghost, please wait up.

BABE: How’s my hair look? Think any of these young ladies will be interested in a date with the home run king?

(AP Photo/File)

FTW: Yeah, about that. Anyway. There’s this guy Shohei Ohtani who won the AL MVP this year and then was named to the All-MLB team as both a pitcher and a hitter. He batted .257 with 46 homers and 100 RBIs and went 9-2 with a 3.18 ERA and 156 strikeouts in 130 1/3 innings on the mound. Can you believe that?

BABE: (applying cologne liberally and swigging from a flask; the liquids splatter to the street below) Well that sounds probably like the greatest feat in baseball history.

FTW: Well you were good at both ….

BABE: Look, kid, I played in an era when they DIDN’T EVEN LET BLACK PEOPLE PLAY IN OUR LEAGUE. Let alone players from around the globe. And nobody worked out. Look at me. I look like you, and you’re a stupid writer. It was a different time, and I just got lucky to be a naturally gifted athlete in an era when there was less incentive to become a pro athlete and fewer opportunities for them to emerge from whatever circumstances they found themselves in at the time. The money was good for the greats but for everybody else it was not the most structured way to live. Leagues were scattershot, owners were nuts. And there were wars! People had to go off and fight wars constantly. I bet that has stopped, right?

FTW: *stares blankly*

BABE: Point is, I was never truly playing against the best of the best, and we weren’t training in any meaningful way. I used to pretend to go down to the hot springs in Arkansas to do “exercise” but that was really vacation, bud, come on now. You got a picture of this Ohtani fella?

FTW: Let me pull it up on my phone here ….

BABE: (hides)

FTW: Yeah, man, this device has more information on it — and more b.s. — than every library that existed when you were alive.

BABE: Library?

FTW: Here he is.

(AP Photo/Richard W. Rodriguez)

BABE: Right. This is a strapping athlete who has honed his craft to be able to do what he did. You know that once some science nerds took me up to Columbia University to do a “study” on me and concluded that my eyes spoke to my brain quicker than anybody else, and my brain spoke to my hands quicker and I was sauced then, my friend, so those readings were probably dulled. I was just born to be great (in comparison with my extremely limited sample size of peers at the time.)

FTW: Fair enough, I suppose. You’ve really gained some perspective over the years, I’m impressed.

BABE: (reaches the brewery, is breathless) Ok, I have this shiny quarter here, give me five lady beers, please.