Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers conclude the 2024 regular season with a three-game series in Denver this weekend. The following is based on the “Before Shohei” chapter in my forthcoming book, “HEYDAY – The Negro Baseball Era in art and words,” which features the spectacular paintings of Kansas City artist Anthony High, to be published next spring by McFarland and C0ompany.
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Shohei Ohtani is the Travis Hunter of Major League Baseball.
Like the defensive back/wide receiver who plays nearly every snap for the CU Buffs, Ohtani is modern baseball’s only true all-way player.
He’s a competitive starting pitcher and competent outfielder (though not this year as he recovers from Tommy John surgery), in addition to being a prolific offensive force.
The three games against the Rockies will determine his final numbers for ’24. But he’s already surpassed 50 in both home runs and stolen bases—a feat no previous player has ever accomplished in the same season. He’s also hitting for a high average.
In his first six Big League seasons, all with the L.A. area’s other team, the Angels, Ohtani compiled a .274 batting average in 701 games, with 171 total home runs (including 46, 34 and 44 in ’21 through ’23), 437 runs batted in and 86 stolen bases, PLUS he had a 38-19 won-lost record with a 3.01 earned run average in 86 games as a pitcher, with 608 strikeouts in 481 2/3 innings.
As remarkable as Ohtani is, though, he’s not baseball’s first exceptional two-way talent.
He’s been regularly equated to Babe Ruth.
But there’s another who was equally prolific—almost 100 years ago. It’s just that his exploits were obscured to many by the infamous color line that denied black ballplayers their rightful place in the Majors until Jackie Robinson, with Branch Rickey’s help, broke through in 1947.
That’s Bullet Rogan, a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame alongside Todd Helton, Larry Walker and Cooperstown’s 343 inductees to date.
From 1920-28, Rogan compiled a 120-51 pitching record with a 2.62 ERA and 136 complete games in 156 starts, PLUS—playing center fieldwhen he wasn’t pitching and usually hitting cleanup, either way—batted .338 with 419 RBI, 50 home runs and 106 stolen bases.
While Ohtani is yet to play for a champion and didn’t make the playoffs in any of his six seasons with the Angels, Rogan helped the Kansas City Monarchs win three straight Negro National League pennants (1923-25) and led them to victory in the 1924 Negro Leagues World Series.
Wilber Joe Rogan or Charles Wilber Rogan or Wilbur “Bullet” Rogan—he’s identified all those ways by different sources—was born in Oklahoma City, in either 1889 or 1893.
While there’s no definitive explanation for the variations of his name, the confusion over his date of birth seems to trace to his enlistment in the U.S. Army, when he quit school, left home in a tiff with his stepmother, and fudged his age to join the military.
Rogan served in the U.S Army’s segregated 24th Infantry Regiment in the Philippines from 1911 to 1914. Then, after honorably discharged, he immediately reenlisted in the 25th Infantry, then-stationed at Schofield Barracks, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Specifically recruited to play baseball for the star-studded 25th Infantry Wreckers—a team of ringers among whom were roughly a dozen future Negro Leagues players—Rogan was the best.
“Rogan was the greatest pitcher that ever threw a ball,” said George Carr, a Monarchs teammate. “Once Rogan pitched to a batter, he never forgot that batter’s weaknesses and strong points. And don’t think Rogan was nicknamed ‘Bullet’ for nothing. That guy had a ball that was almost too fast to catch.”
Not surprisingly, the 25th Infantry Wreckers won Post League championships, the United States Army Series and the Oahu League. They also held their own against barnstorming teams of Major League stars..
Playing “Army” baseball assured Bullet and his teammates steady paychecks.
Last December, Shohei Ohtani signed a 10-year free agent contract with the Dodgers worth a guaranteed $700 million.
The highest-paid White players when Rogan was starring for the Monarchs were Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, Ruth at $52,000 each year from 1922 through 1924, and Cobb $35,000 in ’22 and $40,000 in ’23-’24.
Bullet, meanwhile, was collecting about $400 a month.
Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 16 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at denny
dressman@comcast.net.