The Joy of Ichiro

“Ichiro changes your mind about what is possible,” was what Raul Ibañez had to say after Ibañez tied a major league record with six hits in the Mariners 16-6 rout over the Angels in Anaheim. Ibañez seemed to wave off the importance of his stellar performance to pay tribute to his Japanese teammate—a very Ichiro thing to do. Ichiro had four hits of his own and needs only ten hits in ten games to tie George Sisler’s record of 257 hits in a single season, a record which has stood since 1920. Ichiro has ten more games to break what has to be one of the longest standing records in professional sports.

Ten games to get ten hits is all but a shoe-in for the first Japanese position player in Major League Baseball. Two days ago Ichiro’s prospects seemed anything but possible. After a tough series with Oakland the Mariners right fielder needed 21 hits, an uphill battle at best. 11 hits later along with two intentional walks in 13 at-bats and now it’s a much different picture. He went from almost written-off to almost a sure thing in three games, not that I have ever stopped believing that Ichiro can do just about anything on the field.

Back at the beginning of the season when Mariner’s manager Bob Melvin coached Ichiro to look at more pitches and take more balls, he was all but dismissed by a lot of fans. While batting .290 people were saying that pitchers had figured him out. After the All-Star break Ichiro went back to hitting his way and his way is now .374 and rising. He also has 35 stolen bases to compliment the fact that he is one of the best right fielders in baseball.

To go along with the fact that he is one of the best players in baseball, I would say that he is undoubtedly the coolest guy on the field. His cool signature shirt sleeve tug that he does before every pitch would be annoying for anyone but the best hitter in the game. On Ichiro’s first road trip to Oakland after he joined the Mariner’s in 2000 some fans threw coins at him in the outfield. After the game reporters asked him about the unruly behavior and he said that he thought the coins had fallen out of the sky. Now opposing fans study him like a book, a really good book. After a hitting clinic he put on against the Chicago White Sox last month, the opposing fans gave Ichiro a standing ovation after he reached first safely for the fifth consecutive time that evening. Standing on the bag taking off his batting elbow pad, Ichiro looked around in confusion as to what all the hubbub was about.

About all Ichiro has said about the possibility of breaking Sisler’s 84 year old record is that it was a different game back then. He still speaks little and always through an interpreter even though you just know the guy probably has as good a command over English as he does over a high fastball. Ichiro doesn’t talk trash and what is more refreshing is that he doesn’t spew out a lot of phony false modesty. What he does best of all is get hits.

He gets hits in a way that is probably revolutionizing the way children look at hitting. He is right handed but bats left to get him closer to first base at the end of his variety of swings. Ichiro’s repertoire of swings includes a golf shot which was made famous while he was still playing in Japan. He actually hit a ball that the pitcher had bounced in the dirt in front of the plate. He has a ferociously fast slugging swing that he rarely pulls out. He uses it as a sort of statement. When Ichiro faced National League pitching ace Kevin Brown for the first time he hit a home run on the first pitch Brown delivered. Somehow you knew that that wasn’t an accident. A lot of Ichiro’s swings look like delicate tennis backhands. In the first at bat of the 2000 All-Star game held in Seattle, Ichiro beat Randy Johnson to first base—the first time I had seen a runner beat the pitcher covering first base. Johnson shook his head in disbelief.

What I have always admired most about Ichiro is the fact that he only is 5’9” (my height) and 160 pounds (I have 20 pounds on him) yet he is one of the best players in the game; this in an era of almost daily reports of steroid use. I was a small kid and I could never hit well. I wish that I had Ichiro as an example when I was a kid. We always just tried to hit the ball as hard as we could. It was always the bigger, fatter kids who hit the ball over the fence, Ichiro has taught us that it’s OK to dribble the ball down the line and beat the throw to first.

When Ichiro does break the season hits record he won’t talk trash, he won’t mumble something awkward, phony, and modest—à la Barry Bonds—just expect something you don’t get in sports much in this era. Ichiro embodies something that I haven’t even heard anyone mention since I was a kid playing sports and now it seems almost quaint and corny. It’s called sportsmanship. Remember that?