Ohtani's out-of-this-world skills put WBC into orbit

He strode to the mound with purpose, 6-foot-4 and full of muscle, a relief pitcher unlike any other. Fresh from the bullpen, his uniform was already caked in dirt. Shohei Ohtani had put in a full day's work by the ninth inning of the World Baseball Classic final Tuesday, coming to bat four times, and now he was going to pitch.

This is how greatness looks, and the setting was appropriate: a ballpark on the site of the old Orange Bowl, where Joe Namath delivered on his guarantee to win the Super Bowl for the New York Jets in 1969.

That event was just three years old then, and Namath's heroics helped establish it as a national spectacle.

This was the fifth World Baseball Classic and the first with baseball's superpowers, Japan and the United States, together