Glitchy Ichiro

Found at Glitch News.

There’s Another Ichiro App for That

It’s called Ichiro Times, and it appears to be officially sanctioned. I bought it for my iPhone, but like its corresponding website, it’s almost all in Japanese. However, from what I gather, it has up-to-date news and game stats, video highlights, something called “Users Voice,” a bunch of analytical graphics, and Ichiro’s TV commercials for NTT, Sato, and Asics. The website also has a link to buy this T-shirt that he wore to Spring Training. A closer look at the design…

Here’s my initial Ichiro app roundup.

Ichiro’s Home Up In Harlem

Thursday’s New York Post reports on Ichiro’s new penthouse condo, which occupies the entire 17th floor of 111 Central Park North. The 5,400-square-foot unit was recently listed at $9 million, but he rents it for $23,500 per month. It’s three miles from Yankee Stadium…

A closeup…

Details…

The six-bedroom, 6 1/2-bathroom condo comes with 100 feet of terraces and unobstructed views of Central Park to Midtown. It’s ideal for a Yankee because it’s about a 10-minute drive to Yankee Stadium and comes with a paparazzi-proof parking garage. The unit also comes with a large family room and an eat-in kitchen that includes two big refrigerators, two dishwashers and a six-burner stove.

Not too shabby. The floor plan…Perhaps he was sold on this video…

Another silly Photoshopped image…

He previously lived in a four-bedroom, 2,700-square-foot apartment at The Laurel, at 400 East 67th Street. So yeah, he doubled his square footage — he’s movin’ on up.

No word on whether he had to pay a pet deposit for Ikkyu.

Ichiro’s Childhood Photos

I nicked ‘em all from this NTT commercial.

Ichiro on the Hilo Stars: Video

Circa 1993. Read more here.

Photoshopped Ichiro #4

These Pulp Fiction-al images above and below found here…

Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles-y image found here…

Stereotypical Japanese tourist portrayal found here…

All of the above come from the Yankees blog NoMaas.org; the below images were found elsewhere, like here…

And here…

I lost track of where I found these next two, showing a couple Korean ballplayers clobbering Ichiro during inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006…

Finally, another image whose source I lost track of, something from Ichiro’s time as a Mariner: his rubber-duck likeness alongside Bruce Lee (who happens to be buried here in Seattle)…

Here are installments #1, #2, and #3.

On the Yankee Stadium Scoreboard

Above, stepping in to Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” on Opening Day™.

A photo by Amanda Rykoff…

And another by Just Boone and the Boys…

Ichiro’s Car Crash!

Ichiro totaled his Land Rover in Tampa on Saturday afternoon, but he’s “very grateful” that he wasn’t injured (nor was anyone else). It happened about three miles from the Yankees’ Spring Training facility, at the intersection of Dale Mabry Highway and West Kennedy Boulevard (above). An oncoming car turned left in front of him but he couldn’t stop. His air bag deployed, and then the car he hit crashed into another car. A bunch of quotes:

The car was turning left and turned into me. I slammed on the brakes and couldn’t do anything about it, but I had the green light… I realized that air bags actually do exist. Obviously, I’ve never seen one before. You can trust the car makers that they do make good air bags and safe cars… I almost want my body to kind of feel like I got hit or something. My body just didn’t react, I guess. Nothing. I guess you can say that you’re going to have to do a lot worse to have me get hurt… When I was in high school, I was on a bicycle and I got hit by a car. Ever since then, I’ve been really aware and really careful, to the point where I look everywhere… As a driver, I’m very careful and very aware of the situation. I’m probably the worst backseat driver, because I see everything and I tell the driver, “Be careful,” a lot. So I’m a very careful driver.

First the alligator, now this. Details here, here, and here.

Weird-Ass Ichiro Video Game

Ichiro was apparently cloned several times over in this video game simulation-type thing, as two teams of NPB-era Ichiros square off against each other. It’s like Being John Malkovich, or something.

Ichiro’s Thoughts on Philosophy, Love, Matt Weiters, etc.

Ichiro discussed a bunch of topics in Tuesday’s The Nikkei, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, like his newfound motivation with the Yankees…

It is the Yankees’ mission to keep winning and the fans want and expect professional play from us. This motivates me a lot… The Yankees have so many star players, but I see no egotistic behavior from any of them.

Really?!?

You may sound selfless if you say you do something “for somebody,” but you can also sound self-important. As with personal relationships, you can get into trouble if you try to do something “for” someone. But if you do something for the love of someone, you are not asking for anything in return, and in my opinion, this rarely produces unfortunate results because there is love there. I played for the Yankees for only three months last year, but the Yankees were an organization that made me play with strong love.

On that crazy, two-tag-dodging run he scored in last year’s ALDS…

The only way I thought I could reach home safely was to slow down. Matt Wieters, the Orioles catcher, is a smart player, so I thought the only way to create a chance to reach home safely was to make an unexpected move. In other words, I tried to confuse him… That was a play I remember fondly because it had aspects of both physical and psychological battle. We were playing away from home, so I didn’t hear the cheers of excited home fans, but rather a roar of shock from the stands. It really thrilled me.

How to be successful…

It is unfortunate if you believe that you will be rewarded for your hard work. That is how an outsider thinks. I would venture to say that (to succeed) you have to reach a point where what someone else sees as hard training is no big deal for you… You should not become a professional athlete if you want to continue to enjoy playing your favorite sport the way you did as a child. Of course, you will derive different kinds of fun and a sense of challenge from the sport as a pro, but pro athletes can only experience fleeting moments of joy. You are mostly going through a stressful time. But I work as hard as I can for that moment of glory.

On outwitting the opposition…

(North) American and South American players are quite self-promoting. A player who gets 70 points out of 100 (in terms of ability) tries to psyche out his opponents by making it look as if he has 100 points. I am quite the opposite. If I have an ability of 100, I would try to look as if I only have 70 or 80. This is a better way to blow away your opponents. This approach is much more fun for both me and for fans.

He’s cagey about his personal philosophy…

I cannot pick a favorite maxim to write on a piece of paper now. Of course, I have a favorite motto and philosophy to live and play by, but I am not yet the kind of person who can proudly write such a maxim on a piece of paper. Some older people quote the words of historical figures in situations like this, but I think that is uncool. I hope I can someday express what I think is important in life in my own words, however ineloquent they may be. But at the end of the day, it is not what is said but who says it that is important. I would like to live the rest of my life so that I will become a person who is seen as worth listening to.

How to be a “cheeky young fellow”…

For some reason, there is a lingering belief in the baseball world that a player who turns 40 should retire. I question that idea. I don’t understand why 40 is considered as retirement age when great advances are being made in all kinds of fields, including diet, living conditions, playing environments, training methods and equipment. Everything has become much better than in the past. In my opinion, those who don’t think the average career length of major league baseball players can be extended must have stopped thinking. I will certainly be called “a cheeky young fellow” if I say things like this.

On the possibility of someday managing a team…

I would say such a day will never come if I were asked now. But I once asked Sadaharu Oh whether he imagined as an active player that he would become a manager someday. He said, “Not at all.” After I heard this, I thought there was no predicting how I will feel in the future. But I know even now that I do not have what it takes to become a manager.

Stuff of interest to The Nikkei‘s target audience…

Japanese-made products are far and away the most reliable. I imagine that Japanese technology underlies many foreign-made products as well. I question the government and companies allowing many cutting-edge technologies to leak overseas, (but) I support (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe very much now. I want him to succeed… I bought shares in a company for the first time when I was in junior high and started reading books on how to analyze stocks around that age. I also liked to play a simple Nintendo stock market game. Whenever I check into a hotel, I ask for The Nikkei newspaper. I usually buy shares in companies I want to see do well, hoping to get a little in dividends.

Awkward plug at the end there. Anyway, I copied almost all of his quotes here, but you can read the whole article here. Photo found here.

Ichiro’s Littlest Fans!

Say hello to Beatrice (L) and Vivian (R), born to my wife Eliza and me one month ago tonight!

A New Ichiro Documentary?

As best as I can tell, a new Ichiro documentary (or at least a new news segment) aired on Japan’s NHK on December 29. The teaser above shows our man jogging anonymously in New York, lifting weights, practicing his swing in his Manhattan digs, driving around town, and getting his face licked by his beloved Shiba Inu, Ikkyu.

All this came to my attention via these screenshots, recently posted on tumblr by blood2energy…

Here’s a slightly longer jogging segment, shot while some dog other than Ikkyu takes a shit…

Wait — Is Ichiro Returning to the Mariners in 2013?!?

Not likely, but this 2013 Seattle Mariners calendar would have us think otherwise. Both Ichiro and Brandon League (second from left in the above photo) haven’t been with the M’s since July.

Weird-Ass Ichiro Cartoon

Ichiro Hot Stove Update #3

Link.

Ichiro Hot Stove Update #2

Link.

Ichiro Hot Stove Update

New York Post

A couple weeks ago, Ichiro said that he’d like to continue playing for the Yankees, and the Yankees said they’d be happy to have him back. Then last Tuesday, Japan’s NikkanSports.com reported that Ichiro and the Yanks agreed to a one-year, $5M contract. However, the report was false.

Then on Friday, the New York Post reported that Ichiro had grown impatient waiting for an offer, and he began talking with other teams.

So that’s where it’s at.

On the Ichiro Beat

Jim Caple has a nice article about Keizo Konishi (above, left), a beat writer from Japan who’s covered Ichiro since 1994. However, the article’s content is nearly overshadowed by its accompanying photo of Ichiro’s ridiculous pants.

You Stay Classy, Ichiro

Amy Franz, the Mariners fan behind the Ichi-Meter, received a sweet gift today — one of Ichiro’s bats, a pair of spikes, and a handwritten thank-you card. Despite the issues with punctuation and subject/verb agreement, it’s cool to see how our man writes, provided it wasn’t ghost-penned by an assistant and/or interpreter. I wonder what a handwriting analyst would say about it.

Seriously, this is a pretty cool gesture (and the “stay classy” headline isn’t meant to be sarcastic — I just couldn’t think of anything else). Read the story here.

Ichiro on Dave Niehaus

It was two years ago today that Seattle’s beloved radio announcer Dave Niehaus suddenly passed away. Above is a tribute video, containing a rare instance of Ichiro speaking publicly in English (his brief segment begins at the 7:05 mark)…

He was a Hall-of-Famer, one of baseball’s best, and a great man. I miss him very much.

Also, here’s a compilation of all of Ichiro’s home runs from 2005 to 2012, many of which were called by Niehaus…

Both clips submitted by Austin Conlon, a who posts lots of cool stuff on Ichiro’s Reddit page.