Ichiro to the Bronx

Only in American baseball can a guy walk across the other side of the field and into the dugout that belonged to opponents moments earlier and call it home.

It was a strange scene that the baseball world didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for. I never pictured Ichiro Suzuki in anything other than a Mariners uniform. And if it was going to happen it would be okay; we would all have a long off-season to place in him in a Giants uniform or whatever team he ends up with as a free agent.

Except it happened quickly. We got the text that Ichiro had been dealt to the Yankees for just the price of two nameless minor league pitchers. After twelve years and 2,533 hits as a Mariner the ’51’ was gone and he was wearing a strange number and hitting towards the bottom of the Seattle New York lineup. And I really did mis-type that last sentence, my brain wasn’t adjusted.

He got a standing ovation. He singled, of course; stole second and the Yankees rolled on to a ho-hum victory.

The baseball world is a crazy place of existence. Ichiro in the Pacific Northwest was about as perfect a marriage as there could have been. This transaction is evidence that nothing is sacred in the baseball world, and the Yankees can still have whatever they want for the price of just a few nameless minor leaguers despite having a ‘depleted’ farm system for the past decade. Will someone just tell them ‘no’ sometime?