You heard it here first: Ichiro Suzuki, the baseball player, is going to kill someone. Be it his wife, his father, his mother, or even himself – there will be death by his hands in some way, shape, or form, one of these days.
ESPN has been getting a lot of praise recently for this story they just dropped about the tumultuous winter of 2017, where the 44-year old Ichiro was not sure whether or not his professional baseball career was over or not. But because he’s this machine-like creature of habit, trained and conditioned since he was a kid to play baseball, he doesn’t know what else to do, other than train and prepare for the next season, regardless of his employment status or not. Completely on his own, no less, away from his wife and his parents, whom it’s revealed he has a completely fractured and broken relationship with the dad that put him on the path that made Ichiro into Ichiro.
During the span in which the article is being written, Ichiro is signed by the MLB team in which his career started, the Seattle Mariners, and the prodigal son is returning home, for what is in all likelihood his final season.
But it’s the journey of uncertainty in which Ichiro embarks on that really makes me question his grasp on reality, and paints a picture of a kind of sad existence of a person whom has achieved greatness and immortality in the world of baseball, but is apparently completely out of touch and a total stranger to what the real world outside of baseball is actually like.
Last year, a Miami newspaperman asked what he planned on doing after baseball.
“I think I’ll just die,” Ichiro said.
Now I’m not going to pretend like I’m an Ichiro fan; in fact, the Korean nationalism in me dislikes the Japanese nationalism in him, and I don’t hide the fact that I didn’t like his disparaging remarks about Korea during the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics, and reveled in Korea’s frequent victories over him. But I respect the baseball player like crazy, because he’s been insanely good and delivered throughout his entire career, and it’s hard to hate on a guy that just keeps wanting to play baseball and continues to find meaningful ways to contribute, even if it means bouncing around the league to find someone who will sign him.
Make no mistake though, this is a guy that knows absolutely nothing about the world other than baseball. During the baseball seasons, he is zen and is at home, bouncing around the United States seven months of the year playing the game. But once the season is over, there’s plenty of evidence that the guy seldom takes much time off, and regardless of his contract statuses over the last few years, he’s always preparing for the next season and the next games, despite the fact that he’s getting older, and the nerds running baseball tend to not wish to employ guys north of age 36.
When the time comes when no more Mariners want him, who knows what he’s going to do? I’d imagine he’d try to get right back into baseball in Japan, and maybe he’ll be able to eke out a swan song season with like the Orix Blue Wave, the NPB team in which his professional career began, but then even time will come in which he’s too old for them too.
I’d imagine Ichiro will entertain the idea of becoming a coach or a manager of some sort, and I don’t have to bother Googling to know that there are probably thousands of armchair GMs who believe Ichiro would be the greatest hitting coach of all time. But I’d imagine he’d be a lousy one, because I think he’d get frustrated with all the young bucks who grew and developed in manners not similar to his own, who lack the discipline and training that didn’t grow like he did, and ultimately get fired unceremoniously by anyone who takes a flier on him.
Maybe he’ll go the route of Julio Franco and as his major league career dwindles, he’ll jump on board with independents and semi-pro leagues, just to continue to have an excuse to train and prepare for more baseball.
But then what? What happens to Ichiro when there is no more baseball to be a part of? What happens when there is no more reason for him to go into solitude in cold Kobe, Japan to train, no more need to practice soft toss and long throws? What happens to Ichiro, when he’s simply long longer wanted in baseball?
The motherfucker is going to go homicidal, that’s what.
He’ll try to lead a normal life, at first. Spend time with his wife (who seems more like a figurehead than an actual spouse), maybe try to spend some time with his family. Make amends with his father or something. Maybe be like the guy from Samurai Gourmet. If former stars in Japan are anything like they are in America, he’ll try to transition into broadcasting, or doing commentary for the game for some Japanese team or network.
But eventually, he’ll grow tired of being on the sidelines. While doing commentary, he’ll be extremely critical of the players of today, versus when he was a player. He’ll have great difficulty in not comparing everyone to himself, and it will rub some people the wrong way. Ichiro will grow impatient and fidgety watching people play baseball, when he feels that he could still be playing.
On Mariners alumni day, he’ll return to America and step onto a major league baseball field for the first time in a while, which will exacerbate the itch, and after soaking in a few standing ovations and throwing out a ceremonial first pitch, back in the locker room and back offices of Safeco Field, he’ll be trying to insinuate that he wants to make a comeback at 47-50 years old.
However, instead of the adulation and surprising want from the Mariners, he’ll be met with awkward laughter and queries on whether or not he’s joking. Dejected and insulted, Ichiro himself will go on the warpath and try to prove that he can still play. He’ll go back to his brutal Japanese training ritual and put his body through hell to prove that he can still slap bloopers and opposite field dinks.
But when he steps into a cage with an actual, modern pitcher who will be doing him a favor on his fame alone, Ichiro will be brought crashing to reality when he realizes his bat speed isn’t what it used to be, and what was once guaranteed singles and gap-splitters in 2005, are merely foul tips and one more strike for the pitchers. And then the pitcher will admit later that he wasn’t pitching at full effort, and that’s where Ichiro will go ballistic.
Maybe he’ll kill the pitcher, or maybe he’ll go home and kill his wife. Perhaps he’ll kill both, sequentially. Maybe his oyaji will call him at just the wrong time, and instead Suzuki will go over to his house and kill him instead. And since incarceration is among the greatest dishonors in Japanese culture, it kind of goes without saying that once his wrath has been wrought, Ichiro is destined to kill himself.
The day is his playing career is over, Ichiro should probably be put on suicide watch immediately. A part of me is joking sure, but there’s another part of me that thinks that it might not be the worst idea in the world, either.
Obviously, the Mariners aren’t signing Ichiro because they legitimately think he’s the key to unlocking the playoffs for them; the Mariners pretty much know they’re not going to make the playoffs because they’re the Mariners and they never make it into the playoffs, so the fact that they’d burn a roster spot on Ichiro pretty much says that they’re bringing him back for the obvious PR ride that so many greats in their fields often embark on in the waning days of their careers. The reality is that Ichiro will probably be the fourth outfielder, the backup who will get a respectable number of at-bats coming off the bench to pinch-hit or spell a corner guy every fifth day, and probably get a lot of time pinch-running as well.
Most importantly, they’re providing the world a small favor by prolonging the inevitable psychotic homicidal meltdown that a globally popular and famous celebrity athlete is destined to have, by at least one more year. But heaven help us all if the eggheads in the front office decide to stop playing the nostalgia card, and decide to DFA Ichiro in the middle of the season, and nobody picks him up. The clock for the Ichiro kill spree will officially begin whenever his playing career is officially over.
