Better Than 'The Babe' : Former MLB All-Star Has High Praise For Ohtani

Shohei Ohtani has taken the baseball world by storm this season, dominating on the mound and dropping 41 homers at the dish, and now former MLB All-Star David Justice tells TMZ that Ohtani is better than Babe Ruth.

"He was better than Babe Ruth," Justice said Monday. "Babe Ruth played against farmers. They pitched the whole game back then. You see the gloves they played with back then? Not only that, they didn't have specialty players -- he didn't have no Mariano Riveras. There wan't no Randy Johnsons back then."

He also mentioned that Babe Ruth only had to play against white players:

"Oh, and by the way, you only played against one race. You didn't play against any of the Asian players. You didn't play against any of the Latin players, So you only played against this population of players."

He's not wrong.

Justice didn't really offer any opinion in this bit -- he simply stated facts. Babe Ruth was quite literally playing full-time baseball (because he was rich) while the rest of the league had other part-time jobs.

There's really no argument that baseball gets easier when the entire league spends 100 percent of their time on the game -- the sport objectively gets harder. And arguably the most important fact about Babe Ruth that no one talks about in comparison to Ohtani is that he didn't hit AND pitch in the same manner that Ohtani does. We discuss Babe Ruth like he started 30 games a year and then slotted third for the Yankees every day. That's not what happened.

Ruth was a pitcher who had some success and then shifted into being a hitter. He could do both, which is impressive in itself, however Ohtani deserves the nod for dominating both sides of the ball at the same time. So is Shohei Ohtani better at baseball than Babe Ruth? Yes, yes he is. As David Justice points out, he plays the best players this world has to offer without any limitations. Every race is playing, and Ohtani has still risen to the top anyway.

It's time to give this guy his props as a true one-of-one player. He isn't this generation's Babe Ruth -- he's this millennium's Shohei Ohtani.