And arigato, Champ!
We wonder if this customized Japanese-to-English translation appeared anywhere else on the 'net tonight.
Surprising that Ichiro gave such an open, forthright explanation of his own motivations for leaving. He was excruciatingly polite about it, but the opposite of "stimulating" is "dampening" and "stifling."
In a karmic coincidence, yesterday happened to be the day that we posted our most reverent praise ever. Ichiro has the spirit of a samurai, a sense of honor and integrity that invests even the tying of his shoes and the oiling of his glove with a spiritual responsibility.
Samurai must have difficulty dealing with the impossibility of victory. But samurai maintain the same mu shin whether the battle is going well or poorly. It's been an honor to enjoy his performances as a ballplayer and as a man.
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Fare Thee Well, Dept.
As with everybody else, Dr. D agrees that it was time for Ichiro to move on. It's probably less necessary for SSI to offer funeral bouquets than it is for other websites. We've savored his greatness from every possible camera angle, beginning with Silentpadna's proclamation of his greatness from Arizona in 1999.
Dr. D was bemused, in a good-natured way, at the cyber tears shed online Monday. If that's the way a fan feels about it, we respect that. For some elusive reason we don't quite grasp, SSI can't find a microgram of bad feeling, even five minutes after reading about the trade.
Actually we'd always wanted to see Ichiro playing for the Yankees or Red Sox. If he recaptures his form, which he might, it will be fun watching pitchers trying to deal with him while also dealing with great hitters at the plate.
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Anecdotal Evidence, Dept.
It's hard now even to remember the skepticism that Ichiro fought when he came over here. In a real sense, he went through the same types of trials -- with the volume turned down -- that Jackie Robinson did. In fact, Jackie had Pee Wee Reese at his side; Ichiro had simply nobody. Ichiro handled the racism in much the same way that Jackie did - with restraint, quiet dignity, and massive production on a game-in, game-out basis.
One NPB fan timidly prayed for Ichiro not to embarrass himself. "There may be more powerful players in Japan," he wrote on a chat board, "But none like Ichiro. If Ichiro cannot play there, nobody can play there."
You might remember that, in his first spring training, Ichiro was warming up with his .350, slap-the-ball-through-SS game. The Mariners were aghast at the lack of real baseball ability, not least of all Lou Piniella. Finally Lou couldn't contain himself. "Ichiro, are you CAPABLE of pulling a pitch?" You know, "When they knock the bat out of your hands, will your husband go to the mound for you?"
"I'm just setting them up," nonchalanted Ichiro. Al Martin said, "I wanted to punch him in the face right there." Have a little respect for the real majors, you poser.
The season started and people's mouths closed so fast that you could hear their teeth click shut. When Ichiro threw out Terrence Long at third base, what was it May of that year, the silence reached deafening proportions. It was to remain deathly silent for ten years.
Well, Pudge Rodriguez broke the silence in 2002 one time. Ichiro hit a home run to beat the Rangers and Pudge remarked, "he's the best player in the game right now."
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It's All In the Timing, Dept.
One of the things that Ichiro gave us was a fairly-waged war against the MLB(TM) veteran entitlement that well-and-truly ended the success of the early 2000's and put the clubhouse in the hands of Carlos Silva and cronies. Ichiro, and then Don Wakamatsu, might not have won 90 games per year, but they did take the asylum away from the inmates who'd been handed the keys by Mike Hargrove.
Ichiro never quit on the Mariners. How many losing seasons did he endure? He wasted the last 5-6 prime years of his life on a lost blinkin' cause. And he declares, now finally at long last now, that the time has come: it would be irrational for him to stay here.
Ichiro's invasion of the USA was quietly heroic. His winning of the ROY's and MVP's was heroic. His focus on defense was quietly heroic: nobody gets paid for defense. His relentless performance, as the Mariners became a doormat, was quietly heroic. Ichiro's fairly-waged battle against Mike Hargrove was heroic. Ichiro's military bearing, through his personal humiliation in 2011-12, has been quietly heroic.
And now, in recognizing that the rational course of action is to leave, he's being quietly heroic again.
He's one of my five favorite players ever. And I'm glad he's going.
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Bounceback?
Ichiro's performance the last year-and-a-half has been a Master-class Sudoku puzzle.
We've studied unlucky BABIPs. We've looked at infield hit rates. We've monitored his adjustments to jam pitches. We've talked about his selectivity and his contact on out-of-zone pitches. We've noticed that this year, like all the other Mariners, Ichiro has huge road splits.
Suffice it to say that SSI gingerly predicts that Ichiro will return to 100-run form (pro-rated) for the Yankees. If he does, he might continue it until he's well into his 40's. I wouldn't bet anything I was afraid to lose, that Ichiro won't pull an Adrian Beltre and start racking up 5+ WAR seasons again, having been freed from this park, this 95-loss situation and this local attitude towards him.
It probably wasn't going to happen in Safeco. I'm just glad that a bad situation was swapped out for a good situation.
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Postpartum Dept.
Oh! I just thought of something that made me feel bad. ... from 1989 to 2012 the Mariners have had a bizarre run of dynamic, great, charismatic position players. For the first time since the 1980's expansion Mariners, the M's no longer have a player who could finish #1 in that All-Star vote thing.
July 31 comin' up fast now,
Jeff