Travis Hunter has never been shy about highlighting his abilities. The former Colorado Buffs star cornerback, in fact, has a penchant for overdoing it, and often comes across as overconfident. Hunter’s latest statement is a prime example of that. Comparing himself to a generational athlete, MLB star Shohei Ohtani, Hunter claimed that playing two positions in football is more challenging than excelling at two positions in baseball.
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Ohtani has proved himself in the pros and on the biggest stage. He is the only player ever to hit more than 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single MLB season. On the other hand, Hunter is yet to perform in the NFL playing both positions.
Unsurprisingly, sports fans — especially baseball enthusiasts — are up in arms against Hunter. The Heisman winner finds himself in hot water now, with many from football also calling him out for his immature words. Chad Johnson and Shannon Sharpe were in complete disbelief that Hunter could think and say something like this.
The two former NFL stars outrightly dismissed the comparison between the two sports, with Ocho asserting that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. He tore into Hunter and challenged him to step into a batting cage just once.
“Until you get in that cage, just a batting cage, I don’t even want a real pitcher, just a machine, tell them to turn it up to 90-95 mph, let me see you hit it. Just the fastball. The most difficult thing to do in this world is hit a baseball coming at you. It’s not even comparable,” Johnson said on Nightcap.
Sharpe pointed out that excelling as both a pitcher and a hitter is an incredibly rare feat — one that only Ohtani and Babe Ruth have achieved in baseball history. Meanwhile, playing both offense and defense in football, while difficult, has been done by multiple players.
Sharpe added that the Japanese baseball star isn’t just playing two positions — he’s the best in baseball as both a pitcher and a hitter.
“Shohei Ohtani is the best player in baseball. He could be a number-one starter for your pitching staff and he’s the best hitter at baseball. Trav, I love you bro, but the hardest thing to do and I’ve talked to a lot of guys that did both, I talked to Bo and Time and both of those guys told me that hitting the baseball is the hardest thing to do,” elaborated Sharpe.
Unc and Ocho weren’t the only ones who found Travis’ bold claim irksome and devoid of sense and reality. Stephen A. Smith also chimed in on this conversation though he countered Sharpe on one point.
“It is harder physically, what Travis Hunter is talking about. When you are talking about skill-wise, what’s more difficult is hitting the pitch,” said Stephen A.
“My only conflict with what Shannon had to say is when he talked about nobody hitting the baseball better than Shohei Ohtani. Freddy Freeman and Mookie Betts blasted my Yankees in the World Series better than Ohtani did,” he added.
Ohtani’s exceptional prowess as both a pitcher and hitter has transformed the landscape of baseball. In a sport dominated by specialization, Ohtani’s remarkable ability to excel both on the mound and at the plate disrupts conventional norms.
By the end of the 2023 season, he achieved a 3.14 ERA over 132 innings pitched and hit 44 home runs. Ohtani has already cemented himself in history as one of the greatest ever.
Meanwhile, Hunter has not even started his professional career. While it is no secret that he is a talented young man, with a confidence that is backed by performance, he has yet to get a taste of what it actually means to play two positions in the big league.
Hunter should perhaps be a bit more measured when he talks, especially while trying to make comparisons with athletes who’ve already proven their mettle.
