Champagne, hugs and T-shirts: Inside the unforgettable night Shohei Ohtani reached 50-50

On the eve of Shohei Ohtani’s greatest night in the majors, Clayton McCullough made a prediction.

McCullough had watched much of Ohtani’s chase for 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases from the first base coach’s box, marveling at the Dodgers star’s pursuit of a milestone no player had come close to reaching.

“He’s gonna get it,” McCullough predicted, confident Ohtani had enough time over the season’s final two weeks. Then, the coach offered a bolder, more tantalizing take.

“Probably,” he said, “in the same game, again."

Read more: Shohei Ohtani does it! Dodgers star first to 50-50 mark in three-homer, 10-RBI day

After all, the Dodgers had become accustomed to such dramatics. Ohtani already had delivered amid a hostile reception in Toronto, in his first game against his old Angels team, and even on the night of his highly anticipated bobblehead giveaway.

He’d gone deep in the All-Star Game and joined the 40-40 club on a walk-off grand slam.

Even his first official game in a Dodgers jersey, in spring training, was christened by an opposite-field home run.

“[Times] that we hope he can kinda do something special and there’s anticipation, he comes through,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s really uncanny.”

But what unfolded at LoanDepot Park on Thursday, in front of a small crowd on a late afternoon, transcended what many thought possible — even for someone like him. Ohtani achieved MLB’s first 50-50 season, founding a once-unfathomable club that now has a membership of one.

And he got there with a performance likely to be remembered as one of the best in baseball history: a six-for-six, three-homer, two-steal, 10-RBI tour de force.

“That’s insane,” third baseman Max Muncy said.

“Just unexplainable,” outfielder Mookie Betts echoed.

“Never mind in the same game as accomplishing 50-50,” general manager Brandon Gomes, watching the contest from back home in Los Angeles, said via text. “Feels like one of those special nights that will never happen again.”

For weeks, each of Ohtani’s trips to the plate had been accompanied by a question across the press boxes of America’s ballparks.

Is Ohtani going to homer? Is he going to steal?

In his first at-bat Thursday, he narrowly missed a leadoff homer, sending a screaming line drive thudding off the wall in right-center. Standing on second with no outs, a steal didn’t look all that plausible either.

At least to everyone not named Ohtani.

“The feeling is that if I can go,” Ohtani said in Japanese, “I go aggressively.”

And go aggressively, Ohtani did. After a walk by Freddie Freeman, he and Ohtani took off on a double steal. Freeman reached second without a throw. Ohtani looked beaten by a bullet from catcher Nick Fortes.

The only problem: The Marlins had rookie Connor Norby at third base, a position he had played in just 28 professional games. Norby stretched for the tag. Ohtani slid right under it, mirroring the umpire’s safe call with extended arms.

“In that sense,” said Ohtani, who then scored from third on a sacrifice fly, “I think it was a good steal.”

His 50th steal was down. Two home runs were left to go.

Had it not been for a perfectly executed relay play on a third-inning double that Ohtani unsuccessfully tried to stretch into a triple, he might have been trying to hit for the cycle when he came up in the sixth.

After his leadoff double and steal, Ohtani hooked an RBI single in the second inning, and then stole second without a throw, before he drove in two more on the third-inning drive.

“He was sniffing a cycle, I think,” Roberts said, grinning. “It’s fine. I got no problem with the aggressiveness.”

It proved to be Ohtani’s only mistake. For the rest of the game, the National League home run leader moved into the power portion of his two-act affair.

When Ohtani came up in the sixth, it felt like a tipping point. He seemed likely to have only two more at-bats in the game. If he was going to get to 50-50, he needed to hit a home run now.

Read more: Plaschke: Nothing 50-50 about it. Shohei Ohtani should be unanimous NL MVP

Right-hander George Soriano helped by tossing a hanging breaking pitch. Ohtani took a mighty hack at the inside slider. He stood and stared as it soared to the upper deck in right.

Home run No. 49 traveled 438 feet and tied Shawn Green’s franchise record set in 2001.

An inning later, Green was bumped to second on the list.

“Sorry, Shawn,” Roberts, a former Dodgers teammate of Green’s who witnessed his similarly historic four-home run game in Milwaukee in 2002, joked afterward. “But just in totality I don’t know that I’ve seen anything like this.”

On Wednesday night, Mike Baumann’s plan of attack against Ohtani worked.

With two on and two outs in the Dodgers’ eventual 8-4 win, Baumann threw Ohtani two fastballs up for strikes, then a curveball in the dirt for a swing and miss. It was the first time in four career meetings that the 29-year-old journeyman retired the two-time most valuable player.

On Thursday night, in a rematch in the seventh inning, Baumann tried a similar sequence. The fact he was allowed to pitch to Ohtani was a credit to his manager.

With the Dodgers already up 11-3 and first base open, an intentional walk to Ohtani would have been warranted, even amid the 50-50 stakes.

From the Marlins dugout, however, manager Skip Schumaker kept his arms crossed and rendered his decision to his bench with an expletive. Schumaker explained his rationale after the game.

Read more: Shawn Green on Shohei Ohtani breaking his Dodgers record: He’s the greatest ever

“That’s a bad move, baseball-wise, karma-wise, baseball gods-wise,” Schumaker said of intentionally walking Ohtani. “You go after him and see if you can get him out.”

From the opposite bench, Dodgers personnel appreciated the decision.

“To take that potential moment away from the fans and Shohei himself, Skip understood that it was bigger than that, and I’ve got nothing but respect for that,” Roberts said.

As he begins every at-bat, Ohtani laid his bat on the ground, on the exact same angle as the third base line, to ensure his back foot was in perfect position.

Curveball in. Foul tip.

As he fidgeted with his bat between pitches, surrounded by a sea of standing spectators clapping, cheering and recording the moment, Ohtani’s face held hardly any expression.

Fastball up. Fouled back.

Down 0-and-2, Ohtani called time out and ran his fingers through his hair. Once he dug back in, Baumann prepared to deliver a pitch with what he hoped was a put-away spin. Like the previous night, Baumann threw his two-strike curveball in the dirt. But this time, Ohtani laid off.

Wild pitch. Run scores.

Undeterred, Baumann rocked, fired and unleashed another two-strike curve. This one, however, had a little late break.

A hanging meatball. Hit squarely off the barrel.

Home run No. 50 was an opposite-field rocket, traveling an estimated 391 feet after exploding off Ohtani’s bat at 109.7 mph.

“I’m really just a fan watching just like y’all are,” said Betts, who was standing in the on-deck circle.

After Ohtani rounded the bases, he was received by hugs from teammates, Teoscar Hernández’s signature sunflower seed shower, and a raucous roar from the crowd.

“It was great,” Hernández said of the atmosphere. “I even told the guys that for the amount of fans, it was actually really lively.”

Coaxed by teammates to take a curtain call, Ohtani emerged just as the pitch clock was about to expire in the next at-bat.

But as Ohtani climbed the stairs and waved with his right hand — the one he hopes will be firing pitches of his own again next season — Baumann stepped off the rubber and let him have the moment.

Home plate umpire Dan Iassogna signaled to negate any pitch-clock violation.

“It was a good day for baseball,” Schumaker later said. “Bad day for the Marlins.”

After Ohtani hit his 50th, shortstop Miguel Rojas was among the first Dodgers to greet him.

Sitting out a second straight game while he nursed left leg soreness, Rojas watched from the dugout, reflecting on Ohtani’s laborious season as he saw the ball sail over the fence.

He considered the pressure Ohtani arrived with, after signing a $700-million contract this offseason. He recalled the early-season theft and gambling saga, when Ohtani’s ex-interpreter and former close friend Ippei Mizuhara was found to have stolen nearly $17 million from the player’s bank account to cover debts he owed to an allegedly illegal bookmaker.

Rojas also thought about all the little moments, when he saw Ohtani grinding in the cage or working on the bases or going through his throwing program — a daily routine of strict regimentation.

“We all know it’s been an eventful first season in a Dodgers uniform,” Rojas said. “So for us teammates, it’s just a privilege to watch him every single day.”

There was another layer of meaning given the date.

On Sept. 19 of last year, Ohtani underwent Tommy John surgery to repair a tendon in his elbow, a procedure that prevented him from pitching this season and threatened to compromise his abilities at the plate.

On Sept. 19 this year, Ohtani completed his historic performance with a third home run off position player Vidal Bruján in the ninth inning — marking his first three-homer game, giving him a career-high six hits and setting a Dodgers record with 10 RBIs in a game.

“The rehabilitation process isn’t entirely fun, and if there are places you advance, there are of course places where you also regress,” Ohtani said when asked about the serendipitous coincidence. “I do what I can so that doesn’t affect me in the game, and I emotionally flip the switch. When I play as a hitter, I am careful to focus fully on that.”

When Ohtani returned to the clubhouse, after a couple of on-field interviews, he found a few surprises waiting.

Commemorative “50/50” T-shirts were being handed out to teammates, displaying Ohtani sliding on one side of the slash-mark and taking a swing on the other. Bubbling glasses of Veuve Clicquot were being passed around as well, a champagne toast to celebrate the Dodgers clinching their 12th straight playoff berth, and first for Ohtani.

Roberts praised the room for the annual October advancement. Ohtani also rose to deliver a brief speech in English.

“He was just really grateful to his teammates for their support, that’s about it,” Roberts said with a laugh. “A man of few words.”

While clubbies packed and shuttled luggage bound for the team’s plane back to Los Angeles, players talked with reporters and amongst themselves about the feats they’d just witnessed.

“That has to be the greatest baseball game of all time,” infielder Gavin Lux said. “It’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen anybody do that even in Little Leagues, so it’s crazy that he’s doing that at the highest level.”

As he returned to his locker to change, Ohtani interjected in Hernández’s scrum with media members, joking that the outfielder told him to complete a cycle with a triple in the ninth inning.

“Instead he hit it upper deck,” Hernández responded about home run No. 51. “That’s why we’re not friends anymore.”

At Roberts’ postgame chat with reporters, he was thrown a lighthearted hypothetical about Ohtani’s chances of reaching 60-60.

“I mean as long as there’s games being played,” Roberts said laughing. “He drove in like 15 runs tonight, so, there’s nothing saying he can’t hit nine or 10 more homers.”

For one remarkable night, and one record-shattering regular season, Ohtani and the Dodgers already had done plenty.

“It’s been a grind of a season, a lot of challenges,” Roberts said. “With that, when things happen like this tonight, you gotta enjoy it.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.