Ohtani aces this math quiz, but you have to wonder about the Dodgers

Let’s look at this another way. In 1930 Babe Ruth’s highest salary was $80,000. That would be worth $1.3 million today. On the other hand, Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal would be worth only $40 million in Babe Ruth dollars, or roughly the price of a two-bedroom in Schaumburg.

Any column that begins with math risks the snooze alarm, but comparisons between Ohtani and the Babe became inevitable the same day Ohtani pitched a shutout and hit a home run.

The weirdest thing is nearly everyone seems to agree that Ohtani is worth it, whereas when suggested archly to the Babe that he earned more than the President of the United States, Ruth’s answer was: “Why not? I had a better year.”

Let’s be clear. No baseball player is worth $700 million. No athlete. Not Lionel Messi, soccer savior, at $674 million, not Bears great regret Patrick Mahomes at $450 million, not Bulls sore thumb Zach LaVine at $215 million.

Maybe we can apply the reasoning of the old horse trainer, John Nehrud, who said of the economics in his sport, “Any horse is worth $50 and whatever the traffic will bear.”

The traffic is nuts.

When Ryne Sandberg became the first $7 million man, being paid $7.1 million the season after earning $5.8 million, then Cubs overseer Stanton Cook was reminded “Uh, Stan, there’s a number between 5 and 7,” while baseball’s general consensus was that paying one player that much was “absolutely stupid.” Thank you, Andy McPhail.

No matter how deferred or tax-avoided, Ohtani is making $70 million a season. The money is the money no matter when it is paid, and just to torture a bit more math, the year the Babe hit 60 home runs each one would have had a value of a bit more than $1,000 a dinger.

To match that, adjusted for inflation, Ohtani would have to hit more than 4,300 home runs in one year. Think about that, Barry Bonds.

It is someone else’s money, of course, and the Dodgers must be able to afford it, though I’m thinking they should require Ohtani to pay his own moving expenses, 30 miles up the road from where he became whatever he is.

What is he exactly? He is, to use the modern catch-all, a unicorn and that is true because everyone says it is, not that anyone has ever actually seen a unicorn. Nor, is the world assured, has anyone ever seen anything like Mr. Ohtani.

That is true since the Babe predates us all, but there are plenty of movies and old newsreels. The Babe was what they said he was.

Ohtani hits. He pitches. He smiles. He talks through an interpreter, when, to get back to the Babe, all of that came in the same package when the package really meant something.

Baseball needs a new Babe, true, with all the dickering and timer gimmicking and playoff stacking trying to restore the glory that was, and maybe Ohtani is it. Probably not, probably no more than steroids seemed to get things back on track for a decade.

Here’s the case for the defense. Your honor, we have a 29-year-old international attraction with, oh, at least six more good years ahead, a pitcher and a hitter, though pitching will have to wait to see if he can still pitch, with a lifetime batting average of .274, expecting roughly 30 to 40 homers a year, and figured to win maybe 10-to-12 games on the mound, with a 3.01 earned-run average that already puts him below nearly every good pitcher who ever pitched for the Dodgers. Fernando Valenzuela, he ain’t. Maybe Orel Hershiser he is. Steve Garvey he ain’t, maybe Steve Sax he is.

But that is all in one person, your honor. Orel Garvey we’ll call him. What am I bid?

When introduced in Los Angeles the other day to the same press folks Ohtani saw all the time back in Anaheim, Ohtani seemed a bit like a re-gifted weed-whacker and could only offer his reasons — not for the money — for changing shirts. Winning, he said. Sure, they all say that, but they don’t give back the money.

The Dodgers win, and so they do, thank you. Not enough apparently and the price of insurance is what old Nehrud said it is. With no guarantees but more noise.