People have asked about the 2005 Detectovision.com articles that were, in my opinion, plagiarized by the P-I.

Here is the article that Jon Paul Morosi published.  (It seems like other material was published at the P-I that day, too, but I could be wrong about that.)  It was published on page A-1 of the newsprint Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Nov. 16, 2005, very top of the page, in a 'screaming headline' inset box.

The article discusses interviews that Ichiro gave in Japan, in Japanese, that had been noticed by Dr. Naka in early November 2005.  Dr. Naka wrote me by e-mail about these interviews, and I offered to run a series of articles excerpting them and commenting on them.

Dr. Naka readily agreed, providing the Japanese-to-English translations to me by e-mail, asking me to edit the English grammar, and inviting me to comment as appropriate.  The D-O-V articles are primarily his byline, IMHO.

Bear in mind that the entire English-speaking world was completely unaware that Ichiro gave these interviews, until Dr. Naka called attention to them. 

On November 9th and 15, D-O-V published the below, slightly tongue-in-cheek articles.  They are a bit awkward to read because of the D-O-V infotainment shtick of that era, but the guts of them are quite amazing by Japanese standards:

1. Virtual Interview: Ichiro Part I (The Clubhouse)
2. Virtual Interview: Ichiro Part II (Hargrove)
3. Virtual Interview: Ichiro Part III (On Integrity)

To the best of my own recollection, Morosi e-mailed me a couple of times around November 11th and 12th, implying that he'd like to begin a little info cartel whereby he would pass me clubhouse intel and I would offer whatever I'd heard on the grapevine, especially with respect to Ichiro.  To the best of my recollection, he asked for Dr. Naka's contact information and gave me no clue that he was planning to "scoop" the story.

Come the morning of November 16th, I was stunned to find that Morosi had taken the articles to his own translator :- ) ... a professor at a local university, IIRC. 

In my opinion, this redundant translation was for the purpose of cutting Dr. Naka out of the credits loop, since Dr. Naka of course speaks perfect Japanese and since the coming P-I article wished to avoid even hinting at any assistance in developing its article. 

The P-I, having "re-translated" the articles, published the "scoop" on page A-1, to the best of my memory disavowing all sources and claiming it as Morosi's own original research.

I wrote the P-I, lightly suggesting it might be inappropriate for them not to credit us, and got a terse letter back from an editor that they :- ) were satisfied that they had not plagiarized anything.  Hey, glad to know it's your call, guys.

Dr. Naka noticed, shortly after, that Morosi was no longer working for the P-I.  Perhaps a coincidence.

.....................

I let it drop, not really mentioning it much since, but Dr. Naka got hosed out of a pretty hot credit there.  The articles did put Detectovision.com on Google's "News" bloglist.

The amusing little media drama aside, the 2005 articles give quite a view of the state of the Mariners at the time.  As recently as 2007-08, Ichiro was still the scapegoat for the dysfunctional clubhouse.

In 2009, Zduriencik and Wakamatsu turned around this streetcar on a dime, giving 9 cents change, and now Ichiro is properly a hero in Seattle.

Come a long way baby,

Jeff