Letters to Sports: Shohei Ohtani reaches another level of greatness

Shohei Ohtani became only the sixth player in baseball history to reach 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season earlier this summer. Now, Ohtani has created the 50-50 club. One major difference, Ohtani will be the only member ever!

Wayne Muramatsu
Cerritos

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Just when you think you’ve seen it all, Shohei Ohtani surprises all of us! There’s still time left in the season for Ohtani to build on his legendary achievements. His pregame preparation proves achieving goals are not accidental.

Patrick Kelley
Los Angeles

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And I thought all this time that Roy Hobbs was The Natural.

Dave Sanderson
La Cañada

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Shohei Ohtani had the greatest game in my lifetime (6 for 6, three homers, two doubles, two steals and 10 RBIs). Period. Plain and simple. What’s scary is, if he had slid under a tag at third base (and finished the game with the cycle), it would most likely be the greatest game in any sport of all time. With that said, his accomplishments will mean nothing if the Dodgers don’t win the World Series. Since this will be his first MLB postseason, he has a chance to put a candle on a season that will go down as perhaps the greatest of all time.

Geno Apicella
Placentia

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With the Dodgers’ pitching staff seemingly suffering a setback at least once a week, the prospect of Shohei Ohtani pitching in limited fashion in the postseason is now becoming more inviting. Assuming the Dodgers would not pitch Ohtani unless there was medical clearance, Ohtani pitching to Aaron Judge in the World Series could be even more exciting than Bob Welch striking out Reggie Jackson in Game 2 of the 1978 Fall Classic.

Ken Feldman

Tarzana

Love DeShaun Foster, but it appears that he’s in over his head. How does UCLA hire a head coach with no head-coaching experience?

David Waldowski
Laguna Woods

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Regarding the UCLA football team’s overwhelming loss to unranked Indiana, and its squeaker victory over lowly Hawaii, is it too late for the Bruins to rejoin the restructured Pac-12 Conference? It is possible that they might be able to compete with Colorado State and the other recent entries.

Leonard Venger
Tarzana

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I am a longtime UCLA football fan and season-ticket holder. I have seen some good, average and below-average teams over the years, but never a non-competitive team like this year. They are slow, out of shape, undisciplined, and appear very poorly coached. Until the administration gives the support a football team at this great university deserves and quits hiring inexperienced or lazy, burned-out head coaches, things will only get worse.

Alan Abajian
Alta Loma

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Overheard at Buffalo Wild Wings HQ:

Corporate: “We need to come up with an inexpensive, new promotional offer.”

Marketing: “Let’s give fans free wings every time UCLA wins a football game!”

Steve Ross
Carmel

It is my understanding that Rams coach Sean McVay held out the starters from playing in preseason games to prevent injuries. If that’s the case, why have they sustained so many injuries in just the first two games? Could it be that the players need preseason games to get in game shape and game mentality to be effective and to prepare their body for the rigors of the game? Conditioning and timing are going to be affected without playing in actual games.

Sherwyn Drucker
Winnetka

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The best word to describe the Rams organization is arrogant. It’s hard to imagine that Les Snead and Sean McVay were not in lockstep over jettisoning Ernest Jones and getting next to nothing in return. He wanted more money and proved he was worth it. But Snead and McVay knew better, instead handicapping a rookie defensive coordinator from the jump because they had a better-than-expected 2023 season. The Rams still might be 0-2 with Jones, but not decisively.

Axel Hubert
Santa Monica

Is it Freaky Friday? Dylan Hernández is prematurely predicting the Dodgers are going to win the World Series and Bill Plaschke is the negative Nellie already calling their season over? Neither one of them should be calling it now with all the uncertainty over the actual Dodgers playoff rotation, but this personality switcheroo is really throwing me off. What’s next, is Plaschke going to say the Lakers need to trade LeBron and Hernández that USC is going to make the College Football Playoff? Oh, wait that happened too!

Danny Balber Jr.
Pasadena

So Magic Johnson is going to get “more involved” in an effort to make the Sparks once again relevant in the WNBA.

We’ve heard that before about different L.A. teams at different times. And how’d that work out?

Kip Dellinger
Santa Monica

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Owners and management of the Sparks, take note. To save your franchise, and support of loyal fans, replace coach Curt Miller, who doesn’t seem relatable to his mistake-prone, out-of-control players, with South Carolina’s Dawn Staley, a proven winning women’s college head basketball coach.

Staley, the head coach of the women’s NCAA championship team, would be the perfect coach to energize this franchise, and make the Sparks a championship team again.

Donald Peppars
Pomona

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