Friday, August 14, 2020

Everyone Hearts Ichiro

Ichiro Suzuki is one of those players I was always jealous was on someone else's team. I absolutely loved watching him play, particularly when a pitcher would try to jam him and get him to hit on the ground to his natural side - where a shift might be waiting - and he'd just pop it the other way for an easy single or double. Ichiro did that all the time. Man, we could have used him on the Giants.

Remember that first year, 2001, where the guy was the AL MVP, the AL Rookie of the Year, and took his Mariners to the AL Championship series, where they (unfortunately) lost to the Yankees? That did it for me. We'd never had a Japanese import baseball player like this, and no one so adept at smacking singles at will since Ted Williams or even Ty Cobb.

As I started up collecting cards again this past year, I reckoned I'd pull a few Ichiro cards where I could. I only have a small collection thus far, but here are a few of them. I know I can spend some big dollars to really ramp this thing up, so I'm concentrating on commons and sparkly variations for now, and see where it all takes me.







4 comments:

  1. Ichiro was one of the best players to put on a uniform. He could’ve hit .400 to .500 if he were playing in a 60 game season like this year.
    I kind of thought he was overrated and over hyped during the first part of his first year because everyone on TV wouldn’t shut up about him, but when the Mariners lost that series to the Yankee$, I became a fan, and I’m glad he did. I was lucky enough to see him play at the Trop and see one of his 3,089 hits in person.
    I’ll have to send you some Ichiro cards in our next trade.

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  2. Ichiro!! I hope everybody loves him. Not a power hitter, but dang could he run and that arm!!

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  3. Love me some Ichiro. I think the last game I saw him in person was when he was with the Marlins. I saw them play against the Giants at Pac Bell a few years ago and he made this super cool play in the outfield...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2dEyjARiMg

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  4. Great intro, spot on. You're off to a good start with your collection of the man, looking forward to seeing more showcased in the future!

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