How can you not get sentimental about baseball given the story of Will Klein? The 25-year-old stood on the pitch at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles shortly before midnight on Tuesday evening. So he was in the largest arena in the MLB professional league, which offers a great view of the LA skyline. He was on the largest possible stage that the sport has to offer. It was the third game of the final series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. Both teams had won one game each. In the third it was now 5:5, more than six hours had already been played. In the end, with 399 minutes of play, it was to be the second longest game in the history of the so-called Word Series – and Will Klein’s evening.
Klein lived what children (and often adults) dream about and what the tearjerkers of US sports are about: He only played because the Dodgers simply had no other pitcher left. Nine game periods, which a baseball game normally lasts, had long since been completed, after which a game period is added; If it is still a draw, the game is extended again by another period until one team has scored more points than the other. When Klein was substituted on, the sixth extra time was running. He then pitched flawlessly for four more periods, and in the ninth overtime, Dodgers batsman Freddie Freeman finally got his team a point by hitting the ball into the stands to make it 6-5 – game over. And Klein experienced his big moment as a “winning pitcher.”
:“The best performance in the history of this sport!”
Japanese baseball celebrity Shohei Ohtani leads the LA Dodgers into the MLB Finals with a fabulous performance – as a batter and pitcher in the same game. After a form crisis, he also silenced critics.
How can you not be romantic about Baseball? This is a question Americans whisper melancholy to themselves; Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill pose them in the baseball film “Moneyball,” which is ultimately about: We rack our brains over squads, salaries, lineups, strategy. But what is all this compared to the feeling that this sport inspires? When the bat hits the opposing pitcher’s hard-thrown ball so hard that you can heardthat the ball is about to fly out of the stadium? Or when someone like Klein becomes the hero of a World Series game?
He turned professional in spring 2020. He spent most of his time in the lower-class youth leagues; the MLB franchises Kansas City Royals, Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners each released him. He joined the Dodgers at the start of the season; He initially played for the lower-class Oklahoma City Comets without particularly attracting attention. He had never been on the field in an MLB playoff game before in his life – and is now part of baseball history.
“This day belongs to Will!” Dodgers coach Dave Roberts called out to his players in the dressing room after the game: “But don’t forget: we have a game today!” It was already after midnight – and therefore already on the Wednesday on which the fourth game of the final series was supposed to take place. The Dodgers’ pitcher is now back: the Japanese Shohei Ohtani, who is known to be one of the very few in this sport who can shine as both a hitter and a pitcher.
Ohtani earns $700 million in ten years with the Dodgers, and he is expected to earn twice as much over the same period through sponsors. Ultimately, that’s also a message from “Moneyball”: You can get sentimental about sporting achievements, because otherwise you’ll go crazy given the amount of money being thrown around in US professional sports. But while the pitcher credited with Tuesday’s victory – Will Klein – is making the league’s minimum salary this season ($780,000), the loser on the pitcher’s mound on Wednesday was Ohtani. He allowed four opposing Blue Jays points and didn’t score once as a hitter himself. That’s how it is sometimes.
Klein delivered the rising story of this final series, Ohtani that of the stumbling superhero. Outcome uncertain. After their historic win on Tuesday, the Dodgers, with Ohtani on the mound, lost 6-2 on Wednesday, and lost again the next day, 6-1. They are 2:3 games behind before the last two games, which will take place in Toronto; the Blue Jays just need one more win to win the title.