It's Sho's world and fans around the world lucky to watch it

This was another one of those days when Shohei Ohtani made baseball feel like the international pastime, made it feel that way as much as anybody ever has, and that includes a magical hitter the world still knows solely as "Ichiro." And Ohtani did it in style in the second game of the Dodgers’ Tokyo Series against the Cubs, giving the people in the Tokyo Dome what they wanted, making one of those swings and hitting one out. It was No. 1 for this season after mashing 54 last year.

And he still hasn’t pitched yet for the Dodgers. We keep saying that there hasn’t been anyone like him in 100 years in baseball, not since Babe Ruth. But truly, there hasn’t ever been anybody quite like this.

Ohtani remains the biggest sports star in Japan even playing ball over here now. And over here? He has made himself, first with the Angels and now with the Dodgers, as big a star as we have -- in there with LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes and anybody you care to throw into the high-line conversation.

LeBron is obviously a world figure in sports because of the broad international appeal of basketball and because of the Olympics. But back in Japan and back in front of passionate Japanese baseball fans, Ohtani made these two games against the Cubs feel like a two-day Olympics.

This isn’t about being a Dodgers fan. It is about being a baseball fan and a sports fan and fully appreciating what it is like to watch this man hit and run while we’re waiting for him to pitch again. It is even a blast to watch him swing and miss and smile after he does that. No one could ever possibly diminish the talent in baseball in this time. Aaron Judge hit more home runs than Ohtani did and was the MVP in the American League. Juan Soto had the season of his career and got paid by the Mets with an even bigger contract than Ohtani’s with the Dodgers. There is talent -- most of it young talent -- all over the map.

Ohtani is different. He just is. And on Wednesday, he made one of those swings against Nate Pearson in the top of the fifth. Ohtani thought he had made one on the first pitch of the game against Justin Steele before the ball died maybe 10 feet short of the wall in left. Only then he caught one against Pearson, leaning into a pitch that looked to be even a little in on him. At first, it seemed the ball might have bounced off the top of the wall, before it turned out that it had gone over the wall in right-center and a fan had dropped it. First of the year, with a bullet, because of where it happened.

“What can I say?” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told me one day last year. “[Ohtani] is a wonder.”

He is that on what feels like a daily basis. He became an MVP again last season. He came to the Dodgers on that $700 million free-agent contract and then became the first player in history to hit more than 50 homers and steal more than 50 bases in a season -- the season in which he was recovering from surgery on his pitching arm.

Then the Dodgers went on to win the World Series. Ohtani played through a bum shoulder in that Fall Classic against the Yankees, only producing two hits in five games but still being out there -- even looking as if he were only swinging with one good arm sometimes. For sure, the biggest swing of the Series -- one for the ages -- came from his teammate, Freddie Freeman, the walk-off grand slam he hit in Game 1. Before that, though, against the Mets in the National League Championship Series, Ohtani hit .364 with two homers and nine runs scored, walking nine times along the way.

Ohtani makes you want to watch baseball at 6 in the morning Eastern time in the United States, because you’re afraid you might miss the kind of swing he would eventually make off Pearson. He makes you want to watch baseball in Los Angeles even in the middle of the night. Los Angeles is lucky enough to have LeBron and Ohtani playing at the same time in that city. But LeBron James is 40 years old now. Ohtani is 30.

So another season has started for Ohtani and the Dodgers. Three hits for him in two games in Tokyo, one home run, three runs scored, two Dodgers victories. They all head back to the States now, their home opener scheduled for next week at Dodger Stadium against the Tigers.

The Dodgers are lucky to have him, baseball is lucky to have him. So, too, are we. By the way? Ohtani came up in the ninth with two runners on and one out against Ryan Pressly. Pressly walked him. The fans in the Tokyo Dome collectively groaned, still having not seen enough from Ohtani at that point. Pressly sure had.