Shohei Ohtanis 50-50 feat has chance to live among sports most unreachable marks

If you get bogged down in the question of whether a designated hitter should be eligible to win the MVP award … well, on one hand I get it.That’s the best of sports, after all, arguing issues with no clear hope of resolution.

Maybe you believe a man should have to own a glove to win MVP.Maybe I don’t.

We can have hours of spirited debate and there’s no clear right answer.The best sports arguments are always like that.Who was best: the ’27 Yankees, the ’61 Yankees or the ’98 Yankees? Who was the better running back, Jim Brown or Walter Payton? And, of course, the one that’s been most popular in recent years: Who’s the GOAT, Michael Jordan or LeBron James? (Though I’ve lately become empathetic to the case of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in this one.)Should Shohei Ohtani be MVP?Well, assuming Francisco Lindor was the chief alternative, that candidacy took a hit this week thanks to his ill-timed back issues, so it’s hard to believe Ohtani won’t win the MVP.

But really that argument almost is beside the point, and obscures the more overwhelming truth about what Ohtani has done this year:In a sport that’s been in operation since 1869, he hasn’t just done what’s rare — doing the speed-power combo better than anyone before him — he’s done something that’s damn near impossible: He’s set the bar so impossibly high, in real time.He actually invented a new category, the 50-50 Club.

According to baseball-reference.com, there have been 23,359 players who’ve played Major League Baseball.Just 47 of them have ever hit 30 homers and stolen 30 bases in a season — the 30-30 Club.Ken Williams was the first to do this, in 1922.

He was alone in the club for some 34 years until Willie Mays joined him in 1956.Just six belong to the 40-40 Club.Jose Canseco was the first, in 1988, and when he did that he was looked upon as some kind of one-of-one unicorn, and he was all by himself for eight years until Barry Bonds joined him in 1996.

They have since be...