Ichiro To Go?
Rumors abound early this week concerning a most ghastly notion, a dark vision that has kept us sleepless: reportedly, both the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies called Mariners GM Bill Bavasi over the weekend to inquire about a potential trade for Ichiro.
Candidates for the swap included Roy Oswalt from Houston and some insulting combination of Bobby Abreu, Cory Lidle, and Arthur Rhodes from Philly. Abreu and Lidle finally landed with the New York Yankees in one of the weekend's biggest stories.
Abreu's overrated and overpaid and is on the decline. Oswalt is one of the true characters of the game and an artist on the mound, and while Seattlest would bend over backwards to buy him any large piece of equipment he'd want for pitching here, we just cannot imagine life without Ichiro. We're twitching with anxiety and calling our therapists simply considering it.
Ichiro is emblematic not only of the Seattle Mariners as a baseball franchise but to this town as a whole. He's as important to our psyche and understanding of things as the Puget Sound, the winter rains, the traffic jams on the floating bridges, Tim Eyman's just and democratic solutions, and the creative officiating of NFL referees. Without Ichiro we would be lost. We'd wander around starry-eyed, slack-jawed, and without direction. The man is not just the best hitter in club history, the third-best base stealer, and the best right fielder in baseball today, he's also a philosopher . He doesn't play baseball; he approaches the sport with reverence and profundity, the way we deal with things we consider outside of and greater than ourselves. He's not just playing a sport, he's using it as a medium for considering and distilling the very stuff at his core.
If only we could all approach our daily tasks with that kind of mentality - we have enough trouble rolling out of bed in the morning.
Every Ichiro at-bat is an opportunity to witness skill, determination, desire, craftsmanship, and magic. It's a moment to see someone who doesn't simply know the athletic possibilities of which he is capable, but who understands and feels his very reason for being resonate in everything.
If Seattlest were drinking heavily in a bar, discussing the greatest-ever Mariners in the loud, brash tones usually reserved for sport, some of us would fight to put Ichiro at the top of that list without qualification. There's Buhner and Griffey. There's Randy, Dan, and Edgar. Maybe one of us would embarrassingly say there is even Alex. Not one of these people does what Ichiro can do on a field and with a bat: he started his Major League career at age 28 and if he keeps anything near his current pace for another three or four years he will be in the Hall of Fame.
There will come a day when Ichiro retires. He will probably be at least 55 years old when that happens and still leading the American League in batting. He'll simply find something else, some other way of understanding the world, and leave our game. #51 will go up in the Whatever Corporation Owns the Rights at The Time Field's rafters and that will be the end. We can't think of that day right now, because we have so much more to see.
So please, Mr. Bavasi, Mr. Yamauchi, keep Ichiro in Seattle. We implore thee.
