Mike Trout is arguably the best player in baseball. Shohei Ohtani is the reason why there’s an argument. Marvel should sign Ohtani who is the impossible, superhuman combination of a great hitter and a great pitcher, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Babe Ruth. Both Ohtani and Trout play for the Angels, and therefore, neither of them have really ever played in a hugely significant game. Until last night. If you were writing the World Baseball Classic as fiction, you’d want it to go something like this: Ohtani would will Team Japan into the championship and Trout would lead his USA teammates—many of whom he recruited to play—to face them. The game would be close. It would come down to the final out. Ohtani would be on the mound. Trout would be at the plate. The count would run to 3-2. The basepaths must have been sprinkled with Angel dust, because, somehow, impossibly and inevitably, this field of dreams moment is exactly how things played out. SI: The World Asked Shohei Ohtani For the Fairy-Tale Ending. He Delivered.

+ Joe Starkey: Tell me again why Shohei Ohtani isn’t the greatest baseball player of all time. Seriously, Sidd Finch can’t believe what Ohtani is doing.

+ Tom Verducci: “This was drama as you like it, as if Shakespeare had Ohtani in mind when he wrote: All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women are merely players / They have their exits and their entrances / And one man in his time plays many parts.” You know it’s a big baseball moment when sports writers go full Shakespeare. This moment was why you watch sports. It was just As You Like It. The Beating Heart of America’s Pastime Is Officially in Japan.

+ The American call. The Japanese call. What a great, great way to launch into the start of the Major League baseball season. Play Ball!