There are many ways that people can leave a club. For example, Shaq and Kobe hated each other's guts and traded insults until Shaq left Eagle, Colorado's least favorite visitor in Los Angeles, and went on to a progressively extended career with stops in Miami, Boston, Cleveland, and Phoenix. In the end, he was a lovable guy who's contributions to cell phone commercials and stopping online predators far outweighed his performance on the basketball court or in the studio. Maybe he didn't know when to leave. Maybe he believed that a high field goal percentage from shots really close to the basket constituted greatness... we'll never know or really care at this website, but all the same, it's sad to see someone who defined the game as much as he did leave it.
And if Daisuke Matsuzaka is bidding adieu to Boston in order to get Tommy John Surgery, his last game on May 16th, a game where he let up 5 runs in 4.1 innings with 2 strikeouts and 5 hits to go with his 7 WALKS is a fitting end to a mistake that Theo Epstein made by bidding $51,111,111 just to deal with Matsuzaka. Sure, we were hyped up with the talk of the gyro ball and the 150 pitches a game and the World Baseball Classic performance, but in the end, if he was great, and we're definitely not saying he wasn't, let it be known that a fish out of water in a major media town is a recipe for disaster. Boston's courting of Hideki Okajima to be Matsuzaka's wingman seemed like an OK move... until it all went south with spot relief and holding pattern usage taking him to an ERA that is north of 4. Boston sent him down to AAA Pawtucket, and we forgot about the 2007 All Star appearance and the terrible post seasons in 2007 and 2008 because we knew that he wouldn't be around much longer.
And Daisuke was all alone to face the hate of a manager who really doesn't manage and a town who expects a hell of a lot from all of their players, but why shouldn't they? Matsuzaka cleared $51million for 6 years that saw him go 49 and 30 on a team that was really good for pretty much all of those years. Sure, he has a 6th year to come, but Tommy John Surgery isn't quick, and let's be honest, if it takes a year to 18 months to recover, it's not like he's going to be flame throwing AL East competition.
Instead, he'll be recuperating in Japan or wherever he chooses to go. The Red Sox won't be able to deal him, and they'll eat the last $20million for this year and next year and have less interest in picking up Asian players after the debacle of their last few (ok, so Hideki Nomo did have a no hitter in game 2 of 2011 against the Orioles, but other than that...
And it's a shame, but we can't all be Ichiro or Godzilla.
Showing posts with label Hideki Matsui. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hideki Matsui. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Ichiro Suzuki
In honor of the Baseball Project's Volume 2, the rest of this week is dedicated to the subjects of their songs, and for today, that subject is Ichiro Suzuki, who has been referred to as a $17million singles hitter, but that's not really all that he is. While he isn't the only Ichiro in the world of ESPN (Ichiro Chiba also pops up), but he is a 1-word name and a 10 year dominant force in the MLB.
From 1993 to 2000, he had 1,278 hits and batted well over .300 every year except his first year, which was limited to only 64 at bats. His high water mark was .387 in his walk year, and he even hit 25 home runs in one of his Japanese seasons. Like Ty Cobb who preferred the game of "small ball," Ichiro proved that he could hit home runs if he wanted to by hitting 15 in 2005, but for the most part, his game is about getting on base via the baseball bat (he's only walked 457 times in 10 American seasons, and only once did he have the patience to get 60+ walks). However, Pete Rose summed it up by saying that Ichiro is "the luckiest man ever to get that many infield hits." Rose then relegated Japanese ball to saying that "it's basically Triple-A ball."
Not hitting a country when it's down, but Japanese players have long known that to truly make their name, they have to be imports, and so they come to this country to be great. And when they do, their fans don't discard them, but they only love them more, which was shown in the battles between Ichiro and Godzilla (Hideki Matsui).
And for his country's love and his prolific rate of hits (5 more than George Sisler's former record from 1920 - 262 in 2004). In fact, 5 of his 10 US seasons are in the top 100 on Baseball Almanac. However, he's never hit .400 and unless he gets more patient, he won't either (the season that he smashed Sisler's record, he hit .372, which is still well beneath where he needed to be - mostly because he only had 49 walks. Sisler hit .407 in 70 less at bats with roughly the same amount of walks). That said, he's not even much of a doubles hitter, and while he can hit triples, those have declined as well. What he is is a solid get on base guy. When he's there, his rate of steals is 383 to 88 on successful versus caught stealing (roughly 4 to 1).
He's a hell of a glove man, too, but what he really is would be the level of success that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers. In short, Ichiro is 10,000 hours of practice, which is the level of practice that it takes to be great (not just good) at something. We hear about this in Ken Burns' The 10th Inning, and we've heard about it in many stories about Ichiro. Despite being the second son, he was named "The First Son" and he went on to follow in his father's dreams of baseball with a tiny bat at age 3. By his early days that would be equivalent to little league, he was hitting for 4 hours a day. A natural right hander, he learned to hit left handed to get an extra step out of the batter's box to move down to first base. Call it lucky or just call it another outlier. Like height for a basketball player and like birth day for getting into school and league, Ichiro was able to do something that many of us only dream 0f - standing in the batter's box and making it count.
And while he's never been to the World Series and he probably won't with Seattle's current team, he is an all star fixture. The last time that Seattle had a team, he was their MVP (2001). Oh yeah... he was the Rookie of the Year that season, too.
And if he's "just" a single's hitter, it should be noted that he twice led the league in INTENTIONAL base on balls.
So if Ichiro goes to the moon as the Baseball Project sing, don't you want to be there to see it happen? I know that I do.
From 1993 to 2000, he had 1,278 hits and batted well over .300 every year except his first year, which was limited to only 64 at bats. His high water mark was .387 in his walk year, and he even hit 25 home runs in one of his Japanese seasons. Like Ty Cobb who preferred the game of "small ball," Ichiro proved that he could hit home runs if he wanted to by hitting 15 in 2005, but for the most part, his game is about getting on base via the baseball bat (he's only walked 457 times in 10 American seasons, and only once did he have the patience to get 60+ walks). However, Pete Rose summed it up by saying that Ichiro is "the luckiest man ever to get that many infield hits." Rose then relegated Japanese ball to saying that "it's basically Triple-A ball."
Not hitting a country when it's down, but Japanese players have long known that to truly make their name, they have to be imports, and so they come to this country to be great. And when they do, their fans don't discard them, but they only love them more, which was shown in the battles between Ichiro and Godzilla (Hideki Matsui).
And for his country's love and his prolific rate of hits (5 more than George Sisler's former record from 1920 - 262 in 2004). In fact, 5 of his 10 US seasons are in the top 100 on Baseball Almanac. However, he's never hit .400 and unless he gets more patient, he won't either (the season that he smashed Sisler's record, he hit .372, which is still well beneath where he needed to be - mostly because he only had 49 walks. Sisler hit .407 in 70 less at bats with roughly the same amount of walks). That said, he's not even much of a doubles hitter, and while he can hit triples, those have declined as well. What he is is a solid get on base guy. When he's there, his rate of steals is 383 to 88 on successful versus caught stealing (roughly 4 to 1).
He's a hell of a glove man, too, but what he really is would be the level of success that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers. In short, Ichiro is 10,000 hours of practice, which is the level of practice that it takes to be great (not just good) at something. We hear about this in Ken Burns' The 10th Inning, and we've heard about it in many stories about Ichiro. Despite being the second son, he was named "The First Son" and he went on to follow in his father's dreams of baseball with a tiny bat at age 3. By his early days that would be equivalent to little league, he was hitting for 4 hours a day. A natural right hander, he learned to hit left handed to get an extra step out of the batter's box to move down to first base. Call it lucky or just call it another outlier. Like height for a basketball player and like birth day for getting into school and league, Ichiro was able to do something that many of us only dream 0f - standing in the batter's box and making it count.
And while he's never been to the World Series and he probably won't with Seattle's current team, he is an all star fixture. The last time that Seattle had a team, he was their MVP (2001). Oh yeah... he was the Rookie of the Year that season, too.
And if he's "just" a single's hitter, it should be noted that he twice led the league in INTENTIONAL base on balls.
So if Ichiro goes to the moon as the Baseball Project sing, don't you want to be there to see it happen? I know that I do.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hideki Matsui
In a meaningless spring training game on Saturday, Chipper Jones, a sort of star, hit his first home run of what will probably be his last year.
This morning, a second quake rocked Japan. This one wasn't as strong as the 8.9 magnitude first one that struck on Friday and sent tsunami waves to the West Coast of America, literally ruining one entire California harbor. In the turmoil of the 4th worst earthquake in the last 150 years, a second Hydrogen explosion at a nuclear reactor leaves the world north of Tokyo in a state that could be hellaciously dangerous in a very short time - if that time isn't now.
At times like this, sports don't matter. What matters is what people do to rise up for their fellow men and women.
In this, former Japanese baseball great Hideki Matsui, who now plays for the Oakland A's (after a stint with the Angels and a stint with the Yankees) is stepping up with his team as they offer to do a fund raiser for the victims of the earthquake when they face the Seattle Mariners who feature the greatest Japanese player in history this side of Sadahura Oh. Yes, Ichiro vs. Godzilla will be a game that means something for the world instead of American League West also rans, and isn't that what baseball is supposed to be about?
We are bringing good things to people and entertaining society to make us forget about our woes in times of trouble. Whether that's Albert cracking home runs for Down's syndrome or pink bats for breast cancer or George Bush taking Derek Jeter's advice to throw a strike as the players all wear FDNY and NYPD hats after 911. We've always been there when society calls to us, and that's the way it should be.
So we'll get the perfection of singles and speed with Ichiro, a player that had it drilled into him from a very young age that to be the best, one had to give all. We see this with rescue workers who use chainsaws and pick axes to reach bodies of survivors and the dead.
We'll get a class act who apologized to his boss for getting injured after playing in 1,000 games straight. And the life philosophy of Matsui is what the Japanese will do as they rebuild their country all over again. Just like in the devastation of World War 2, their world will come back together and will be stronger and a force for the world as a whole.
And through it all, we will come together and we'll get back to baseball being the good things in life - not the bad things in life bringing us together to look after our fellow man, which when you think about it really is the best thing in life.
This morning, a second quake rocked Japan. This one wasn't as strong as the 8.9 magnitude first one that struck on Friday and sent tsunami waves to the West Coast of America, literally ruining one entire California harbor. In the turmoil of the 4th worst earthquake in the last 150 years, a second Hydrogen explosion at a nuclear reactor leaves the world north of Tokyo in a state that could be hellaciously dangerous in a very short time - if that time isn't now.
At times like this, sports don't matter. What matters is what people do to rise up for their fellow men and women.
In this, former Japanese baseball great Hideki Matsui, who now plays for the Oakland A's (after a stint with the Angels and a stint with the Yankees) is stepping up with his team as they offer to do a fund raiser for the victims of the earthquake when they face the Seattle Mariners who feature the greatest Japanese player in history this side of Sadahura Oh. Yes, Ichiro vs. Godzilla will be a game that means something for the world instead of American League West also rans, and isn't that what baseball is supposed to be about?
We are bringing good things to people and entertaining society to make us forget about our woes in times of trouble. Whether that's Albert cracking home runs for Down's syndrome or pink bats for breast cancer or George Bush taking Derek Jeter's advice to throw a strike as the players all wear FDNY and NYPD hats after 911. We've always been there when society calls to us, and that's the way it should be.
So we'll get the perfection of singles and speed with Ichiro, a player that had it drilled into him from a very young age that to be the best, one had to give all. We see this with rescue workers who use chainsaws and pick axes to reach bodies of survivors and the dead.
We'll get a class act who apologized to his boss for getting injured after playing in 1,000 games straight. And the life philosophy of Matsui is what the Japanese will do as they rebuild their country all over again. Just like in the devastation of World War 2, their world will come back together and will be stronger and a force for the world as a whole.
And through it all, we will come together and we'll get back to baseball being the good things in life - not the bad things in life bringing us together to look after our fellow man, which when you think about it really is the best thing in life.
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