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Psychiatric emergency

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The Olympics are upon us and so is a new state of emergency, not because the coronavirus situation got suddenly worse, but because it is obvious to the government that regardless of how bad it looks to hold an Olympics during a state of emergency, no one outside Japan will put a stop to it.

If it weren’t for a greater suspicion that the schizophrenic behavior of Japan’s oligarchy wasn’t driven by greed and corruption, one would have to wonder if institutional mental illness might be the cause.

No emergency here

Having avoided its worst-case scenario, losing the Olympics, Japan’s government this past week was suddenly freed up to consider that thing on the back burner, keeping the population safe from the coronavirus.

For nearly a year and a half, Japan’s government has avoided necessary measures to combat COVID-19 in favor of carrying an Olympic public relations torch. By the way, the torch relay itself in Tokyo has now become virtual, because well who cares. The Olympics are here, and it’s no longer important to put on a good show.

In February 2020, we were told to mask up, social distance and avoid unnecessary travel, so that the Olympics could be held when the pandemic ended in the summertime. In order for that to happen, Japan would have to convince the world that it was safe – by reporting few infections.

At first, the government refused to publish infection numbers. The Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker site had to collect them from individual prefectures because Japan wasn’t helping–just like being tested. If you weren’t incapacitated for a prolonged period with a few prescribed symptoms, you were told, “Sorry, no test for you.”

Out of concern that a rigidly enforced state of emergency, with testing and tracing, might spoil the Olympics, Japan didn’t do those things. The first state of emergency didn’t happen until the United States’ athletics and swim federations spoiled Japan’s Olympic fantasy by refusing to attend, meaning the IOC had to pull the plug over a lack of U.S. TV money.

Come to think of it, COVID might be a problem

I’m sure it was just a coincidence, but within days of the postponement, the Japanese government suddenly decided a state of emergency WAS needed.

Still, the government and the IOC apparently assumed the Olympics would be COVID-free because “This thing CAN’T POSSIBLY last until August 2021.” When autumn came and the virus proved to be unconcerned with the oligarch’s Olympic fetish, more states of emergency were ordered, and the government and IOC began studying how to have an Olympics that can be sold as being safe and secure.

Safe and secure

I’m not the best person to evaluate their countermeasures, and organizers keep pointing to bubble-wrapped world championships and sporting events as success stories, but the Olympics are on an unimaginably different scale.

Japan’s efforts have caused the international swimming federation (FINA), epidemiologists, and public health experts around the world and in Japan to cringe at the countermeasures. Vaccinations are not a pre-requisite for any participant, official, volunteer, driver, or another person who may be exposed to deadly new variants, including any that might develop here because the Tokyo Olympics are going to be a kind of summit meeting for the world’s germs.

Three months ago, when there was still a fear the Olympics might yet be canceled, Japan once more held off on a state of emergency to stem the spread of the virus, waiting until the wheels were so far in motion that they could no longer be stopped. Now that we know they will go ahead regardless of any public health crisis in Japan or the risk to the population, it’s finally OK for Japan’s government to issue yet another state of emergency.

Perhaps in the future, social scientists and public health researchers will find a link between the Olympics and organizational symptoms that mimic mental health issues in individuals. Read the Mayo Clinic’s definition of schizophrenia and tell me it doesn’t sound eerily familiar.

“Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.”

–The Mayo Clinic

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Baseball, Paid Content, Research

Ohtani’s rare ability

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A lot of what drives the “Shohei Ohtani isn’t that great” talk is just some peoples’ desire to be contrary: “Sure he hits home runs, but he doesn’t hit for average and he’s not the best pitcher on the planet.”

This, of course, is a criticism that would eliminate every player other than Shohei Ohtani from a discussion of greatness, so that borderlines on criticizing a player’s baseball value for his eating habits or his relationship with the media.

But eight years ago, the Ohtani two-way experiment was really an experiment and not the successful test we’ve seen in 2016 and again in 2021 that people are still treating as if it’s something he can’t really do.

In 2013, Ohtani didn’t wow people in Japan as a hitter or a pitcher, and while 90 percent of the fans loved the idea of a player being able to do both, 90 percent of Japan’s former players were dead set against it in public.

I didn’t have an opinion about whether Ohtani should pitch or hit or do both. I merely thought that his succeeding at both would be — as non-butt hole MLB fans are discovering this year — about the coolest thing imaginable.

What was interesting was that in 2013, virtually everyone who was against Ohtani splitting his time between the outfield and the pitcher’s mound was convinced that the true future of an 18-year-old with a 100 mph fastball was as a pitcher.

But when I actually looked at Ohtani’s numbers, it occurred to me that while the fastball gave him rare potential as a pitcher in a country where virtually nobody throws 100 mph, his upside as a hitter was far more unique.

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As an 18-year-old rookie, Ohtani batted .238 with three home runs in 204 plate appearances. He went 3-0 with a 4.23 ERA with 46 strikeouts in 61-2/3 innings as primarily as a starting pitcher. And with those numbers, the chorus for pulling the plug on his batting career got really loud.

What sold me on his hitting, was the context, the shape of Japanese pro baseball, where 18-year-old pitchers who can command their secondary pitches and who have decent stuff are not a dime a dozen, but they’re not that rare either.

Japan youth baseball focuses so much on winning, that it kills off entire generations of elite elementary school arms in the search for the next Daisuke Matsuzaka. It is a baseball analogy of the Imperial Japanese Navy making its aviator training so insanely difficult, that its elite corps of pilots was far too small for a prolonged conflict.

Japanese youth baseball ruins so many young arms before they even get to junior high school, that the number of 18-year-olds who can develop elite velocity is close to zero. That was the attraction of a big strong Shohei Ohtani. But the flip side is that, in Japan, a youngster with “B+” velocity and really good stuff and command comes along every few years.

Since Japanese pro baseball expanded and split into two leagues in 1950, 27 pitchers younger than 19 have pitched 50-plus innings with an ERA lower than 5.00 while striking out over six batters per nine innings. Needless to say, a number of them turned out to have tremendous careers.

Nineteen did it before 2000, and three of those are Hall of Famers, six won 100 games in their careers, six won fewer than 50.

What if we do hitters? The most remarkable thing about Ohtani was an 18-year-old hitting 15 doubles in 204 plate appearances.

Just over 10 percent of his plate appearances resulted in an extra-base hit. The only players in NPB history to do that before Ohtani were Kazuhiro Kiyohara, who isn’t in the Hall of Fame because of his drug arrest, and Hall of Famer Kihachi Enomoto, period.

How many 18-year-olds have ever hit 13 doubles in an entire Japanese season? Ohtani was the eighth. In addition to Kiyohara and Enomoto, the other seven before Ohtani were: Hall of Famer Yasumitsu Toyoda,

How many 18-year-olds have ever hit 13 doubles in an entire season? Ohtani was the eighth. In addition to Kiyohara and Enomoto, the other seven before Ohtani were: Hall of Famer Yasumitsu Toyoda, Shoichi Busujima — who should be in the Hall of Fame, catcher Minoru Tanimoto — a two-time all-star, Enomoto, Masahiro Doi– who should be in the Hall of Fame, Kiyohara and Hall of Famer Kazuyoshi Tatsunami.

As a pitcher, Ohtani’s peer group was a few Hall of Famers, a bunch of really good players, and a few more ordinary talents.

On the other hand, the worst member of Ohtani’s hitters’ peer group was a two-time all-star who played over 1,000 games, while the other six all belong in the Hall of Fame.

And though it’s hardly the most rigorous of studies, that’s why when people told me after the 2013 season that Ohtani’s real future was as a hitter, I had to be the contrarian in the crowd.