My 2nd Favorite Team
I follow the Seattle Mariners—aka my 2nd favorite baseball team on Twitter—and the other day they posted this article about Ichiro, one of my favorite baseball players. I was mentioning the article to Ian last night, and he suggested I write a post about it.
Reading this article just warmed my heart. It talked about how since returning to the Mariners, Ken Griffey Jr.’s presence has boosted the morale of the team, Ichiro in particular. The article said that for the past few years that Ichiro has been an island—not excluded, but not included, drifting on his own. I had always wondered how well Ichiro gets along with his teammates. I’m sure he speaks English, but I always see him use a translator in interviews and just reading articles about his work ethic and such I’ve always wondered how this translates to a major league baseball team.
In Japan, interpersonal relationships can be quite complicated. In fact, this is not limited to just Japan, but many other Asian countries as well. Factors such as age, status, etc. dictate how people are able to interact with each other, even still to this day. Because of this, Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro’s relationship is especially unique. Only a person with Ken Griffey Jr.’s status as a player would be able to mess with Ichiro as he does, tickling him as he warms up and teasing him about his style of dress. In fact Ichiro himself said that no one in Japan would dare to do it and if someone else on the team were to do it, he’d probably smack him.
I think the reason this story touched me so is because it was nice to be able to see that even in baseball multi-million stars make the effort to reach out to one another and bridge a cultural gap. I know that living in another country is not easy, but it’s so much easier when someone reaches out to you to give you a hand.
