Rob Manfred called in the top of the 9th to remind the Mariners of the new rule limiting each team to one impromptu tribute to a retiring legend per game. Just want to make sure we keep this thing moving along here.

I just don’t understand how you could not vote for Ichiro. He gets in on the sheer excellence of his numbers alone, but add in his impact on the game overseas and it is a no-brainer.

Also a Yankee, but Mariano Rivera

I remember when Japanese players hit the bigs and did their bat flips and it was totally frowned upon by us Americans. Fast forward to today and baseball is fighting a losing battle that it’s boring (despite evidence that NFL games are actually longer). I’ve watched games in Japan and Puerto Rico, same game but the…

I remember him coming to the league and thinking, all he does is hit singles. Then I saw him play live and was amazed at how smooth he was. All his movements were so compact and efficient he was. No wonder he lasted till his mid-40s. 

Ichiro’s Impact:

it broke my heart when he was briefly with the Yankees, because it meant I had to root against him. has any contemporary player been more universally beloved?

I want Ichiro to drop the kayfabe and become a color announcer. My God, the stories that man must have.

I stopped caring about fantasy baseball and fantasy sports in general about 10 years ago after being stuck at a cocktail party where the only thing a couple of attendees could talk about were their fantasy teams. I’d devoted way too many hours into something that I did not enjoy doing. Upon reflection, the only time…

I was already 20 when Ichiro joined MLB and I think I’d thought I was years past the part of my life where a professional athlete could ever be the kind of immortal, larger-than-life figure that, say, Michael Jordan or Lawrence Taylor or Martina Navratilova had seemed to be when I was a kid. But Ichiro was—and in lots…

Hard to imagine an induction that will be more universally celebrated. Rivera, I suppose, who went in unanimously. I have a feeling Ichiro will as well.

Ichiro is my favorite player who has never played for my team and it’s not even close.

Griffey in the dugout to greet Ichiro made me nostalgic for all of the Mariners teams of my youth that always found a way to came up just short.

Am I the only one who watched this and though “Oh shit! The mariners forgot to trade Encarnacion!”

So did I actually.  I remember the first grainy videos I saw of him online where he was throwing frozen ropes from RF were just incredible.

“look at the freaking hose on this guy (still)....”

what an absolute bad motherfucker.

And the reverse view

I’m a couple of years younger than Ichiro, and if I attempted that throw my arm would vacate its socket and travel further than the ball.

A couple of feminist friends took me to task for saying Holmes faked her voice. They said higher octaves don’t help women in the workplace, which I don’t argue with, and she only “lowered her voice an octave,” which in their minds wasn’t fake. I say she lowered it way TOO much, and that’s what makes it fake.