Shohei Ohtani may be the best two-way baseball player on planet Earth, but an astronaut who hails from the same country has the Los Angeles Dodgers star beat in outer space.
Koichi Wakata, an astronaut from Japan who has been on multiple space missions, shared an awesome video last week in honor of the Tokyo Series that was played between the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. The video, which has since gone viral, shows Wakata playing baseball with himself during Expedition 68, which began in September 2022.
In the surreal footage, Wakata is shown floating a weightless baseball through a space vessel. He then quickly tracks the ball down, hits it in the other direction, and makes the catch himself.
It's baseball season – the @MLB season opener is kicking off in Japan. During Expedition 68 I played a solo game of baseball. In microgravity you don't need a whole team, you can play all of the positions! pic.twitter.com/m1d19mbzfE
— Koichi Wakata 若田光一 (@Astro_Wakata) March 18, 2025
The more we think about it, that might actually make Wakata a three-way player rather than a two-way player.
Whatever the case, that must have been a fun experience.
