Pitches Better Hits Better

He hits cleanup. He also pitches. These are both true about the same person.

There is a version of baseball where a player is a pitcher. There is a different version of baseball where a player is a hitter. These two versions have coexisted peacefully for a very long time, separated by a mutual understanding that the skills required for each are sufficiently different and sufficiently demanding that a person who excels at one will generally not be asked to also excel at the other, because that would be unfair to the other players who have spent their entire careers becoming excellent at one thing, and also it is simply not something that happens. Shohei Ohtani happens. He takes the mound and throws pitches that batters do not hit, with a fastball that reaches the upper nineties and a splitter that disappears before it arrives and a slider that does things to the bat-to-ball path that are difficult to describe in vocabulary that does not include the word “no.” Then, on days when he is not pitching, he bats in the middle of the lineup and hits the baseball the distance that baseballs are hit by people for whom hitting is the entire job. He is paid $700 million. This number is large. He is worth it for the pitching alone. He is also worth it for the hitting alone. Shohei Ohtani pitches. He also hits. The sentence works in both directions, and both sentences are true, and neither is exaggerated, and this is the actual situation in Major League Baseball right now.

The Shoehei Ohtani Pitches tee is for Dodgers fans who have watched Ohtani take the mound after watching him take an at-bat and felt the specific cognitive dissonance of watching someone do two elite things in the same game, for the same team, at the same time, as a normal Tuesday. District DM130 Perfect Tri® Tee — featherlight, broken-in soft, available in Grey Frost, Royal Frost, and White. For fans who have watched him warm up and needed a moment to remember which version of Shohei Ohtani was currently happening.

• 4.5 oz. — light enough for a fan attending a game where the cleanup hitter is about to take the mound, which is a sentence that applies to one person in Major League Baseball and that person is the one on this shirt
• 50% polyester / 25% combed ring-spun cotton / 25% rayon — tri-blend construction that holds together through a full outing from a starting pitcher who earlier in the week had an RBI double, and will again, and does this as a matter of routine
• Rib-knit neck that holds its shape through the broadcaster saying and now Ohtani takes the hill after saying Ohtani with a two-run homer earlier in the same broadcast, which is a thing that happens when Shohei Ohtani plays baseball
• Tear-away label — no irritation at the collar, just a clean, well-built shirt for someone who has sat in the bleachers watching a man with a $700 million contract strike out the side and found this completely appropriate given the contract amount and also given who is pitching
• Shoulder-to-shoulder taping for a structured fit appropriate for someone watching Shohei Ohtani do the thing where he pitches, which he does, with the same apparent ease with which he does the other thing, which is hitting, which he also does
• Available in Grey Frost, Royal Frost, and White — Dodgers colors for a fan watching a Dodger who pitches in addition to everything else, which is a lot of everything else, and which would be remarkable even if the pitching were not also happening

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