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The joy of Ohtani, a sleeping giant and MLB's next big thing

Imagine a world in which Roy Hobbs exists.

This is about inimitable rookie sensation Shohei Ohtani, but let me make my point using the fictional Hobbs, the protagonist of the great baseball movie "The Natural" (Yes, it was a book first. A great book by Bernard Malamud. But the movie works best for our purposes.) Spoiler alert: Let's pretend Hobbs did not get shot by Barbara Hershey and manages to reach the majors, out of nowhere, as a flame-throwing, power-hitting young man.

Given what we know about him -- the unprecedented arm on the mound, the unmatchable power at the plate -- we would have a fictional character doing something similar to what Ohtani is doing right now.