Tag: baseball

Few things make me as entertained as professional athletes getting owned monetarily

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In short: NBA player Tony Snell owned when nobody picked him up, denying him from hitting premium pension benefits; MLB player Blake Snell owned because nobody wants to sign him, among other notable free agents, despite being the reigning NL Cy Young winner

Man, there’s few things that are amusing to me than hearing stories about professional athletes who get owned, financially.  A bunch of out-of-touch grown-ass man-babies who didn’t learn how to manage their finances or don’t seem to realize the privileges they have getting paid egregious amounts of money for being exceptionally good at playing children’s intramural sports. 

And I love how the media feeds us these stories as if we should feel bad for these guys, as if we the regular people will be able to relate and agree that they’re getting screwed or something, by some evil employers and/or corporations.  Nuh-uh, doesn’t work that way, and I don’t think I’ll ever feel bad for any professional athlete not getting the six or seven figures-plus that they think they deserve, while short of me finding the recipe for instant money, I, or anyone like me, will never see seven figures at any point in our lives.

So let’s start with Tony Snell, the fringe basketball player, whom we’re supposed to feel bad for because no team in the NBA wanted to pick him up, and give him a 10th year of service, which would qualify him and his entire family for “premium” pension, which encapsulates lifetime medical for him, as well as his spouse and children.  It’s also pointed out how his sons are both on the spectrum, and made to sound like it’s a tragedy that no NBA team, especially a curated list of teams that had an available roster spot, would pick him up and let him ride the bench so that he could get full medical for his family.

Last time I checked, autism is not cancer, nor is something that is life-threatening, and isn’t something that only the offspring of professional athletes are subject to.  Millions of people across the planet are on the spectrum or deal with autism and they most certainly don’t have the safety net of insurance to help out with some of the nuisances that living with autism can cause, and Tony Snell having to deal with kids with autism doesn’t make him a tragedy, it just makes him like millions of other parents who have kids with it as well.

Furthermore, according to Spotrac, Tony Snell has made $52 million dollars in his career.  For playing basketball.  And that doesn’t include any endorsements or sponsorship dollars he might’ve made at various points in his career.  Even assuming that half of that was hoovered up by Uncle Sam, he’s still probably cleared $26M in his lifetime.  Most Americans won’t even see $1M in their lifetimes, and we’re supposed to feel bad that someone who’s cleared probably $26M isn’t going to get free healthcare from the NBA?  As the kids say, (get) the fuck out of here.

I also love the part where other like-minded snarks like me pointed out his wife’s lavish spending habits, showing where most likely the vast majority of his $26M+ fortune has gone throughout the last nine years, and why it’s likely that he’s reliant on premium healthcare in order to get some care for his kids.  I think it’s obvious where the problem really lies, and it’s not the cost of healthcare, it’s not awareness for autism, and it’s not the NBA’s current system that only allows the premium healthcare to those who can clear ten years of service.

Now on to Blake Snell, the pitcher, freshly removed from winning the NL Cy Young, which makes him one of the only pitchers in history to have won both an NL and an AL Cy Young, is still unemployed, even after Spring Training camps have opened across MLB.

Continue reading “Few things make me as entertained as professional athletes getting owned monetarily” →

The case for Trevor Bauer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t say that I’m paying much attention to the baseball offseason other than the big name moves that are spoon-fed to me through mainstream media, but there’s one name that I’ve been very curious about to see what happens: Trevor Bauer.

Long story short, Bauer was accused of sexual assault, suspended by MLB, went to Japan to keep on pitching, eventually found innocent and legally exonerated, but remains unemployed, despite having put up a solid season in NPB and remaining in game-ready shape.

And today, Trevor Bauer has basically declared that he would play for free:*

For a team that doesn’t want to commit multi years, hundreds of millions of dollars, or many elite prospects for a Cy Young award winner, they could sign me for the league minimum and pay 0 incremental dollars over what they have to pay to that roster spot anyway. Just another option for teams that want to win and don’t want to break the bank.

*League minimum, last time I checked was $725K which is a ton of money, but largely negligible as office supplies as far as a Major League Baseball organization is concerned

It’s obvious at this point, Bauer is grasping at straws for a job, and I’m sure that if were able to secure one, he’d probably fairly easily be able to re-establish his value and get back to Major League fuck-you money again, but it’s evident that there’s some league-wide black balling of Trevor Bauer, despite the fact that legally he’s in the clear.  Sure, there are other accusers and probably civil suit(s) somewhere in the background, but by and large we still have a man that has been found guilty of nothing, but is still being punished by today’s societal standards that perception is reality.

When I was live-or-die by the Braves on a daily basis, I’d probably be in support of the blackballing of Bauer here; the Atlanta Braves must remain pure and respectable and the high standard of integrity that can only come with wearing The A.  But I’m not that guy anymore, and I am still a Braves, fan, for lack of a better term, albeit a shitty one that probably hates the team more Taylor Swift fans love Taylor Swift, and I’m tired of seeing the Braves overachieve throughout the regular season and flop in the postseason like it were the 90s again.

Yes, I know we’re just three years removed from the Braves being World Series champions, but with teams this talented, expectations this high, and a contention window wide open, a team has to strike while the iron is hot, and I feel that the Braves are squandering their chances by being so Braves-ey, and constantly thinking they’ll continue to get overachieving performances out of their roster for the rest of this contention window.  The lack of depth in starting pitching has been exposed over the last two years, and the team shit the bed in free agency this off-season in addressing this need, while fans continue to sing the praises of general manager Alex Anthopolous as if already won the next World Series.

I would much, much, much rather see Trevor Bauer take the hill in a playoff game over Bryce Elder, or even a late-season tired Spencer Strider, whom both have shown the tendency to run out of gas by the time the playoffs start over the last two years.  And it would be nice to have a reliable starting option in the wings if there’s another late-season Max Fried injury, or Charlie Morton’s 40-year old arm starts to go, or it turns out that Ian Anderson can’t bounce back from injury or that any of the fringe starters they got are better served in the bullpen.

Trevor Bauer got knocked around when he first got to Japan, but he still compiled a solid overall season in the land of the #1 ranked baseball nation on the planet, where he had a 2.76 ERA and 130 strikeouts in as many innings, a solid  9.0 K/9.  He would slot into the top-2 of any starting five in baseball, and it would literally cost any team the same cost as it would to pay the 26th man on the roster, whose primary job will be the late-inning pinch runner for the team’s veterans.

There’s absolutely little more than the Braves, and their stat-geek fans love, more than saving money, and a willingness to take the league minimum, is about as big of a money savings as there possibly is.  Nobody does what Trevor Bauer did, because the MLBPA won’t let them, but seeing as how Bauer was blacklisted, he’s obviously not a part of it anymore because he’s not actually employed by MLB at the moment, so here we are – an ace-caliber pitcher showing his hand and telling the world that he’s willing to play for peanuts so that he can re-establish himself in Major League Baseball.

And just to put the kibosh on the perception that the Braves are too high and mighty to pick up an innocent miscreant like Trevor Bauer, let me remind Braves fans of some of the guys in franchise history who were actually guilty of crimes against women:

  • 1995, beloved skipper Bobby Cox was arrested on assault charges against his wife
  • 1997, Chipper Jones revealed to have had extramarital affair with a Hooters waitress; also impregnating her
  • 2012, Andruw Jones is arrested on assault charges against his wife
  • 2021, Marcell Ozuna is arrested on assault charges against his girlfriend

So let’s not act like the Braves, or Major League Baseball is some holy organization where saints play.  Yes, Trevor Bauer is kind of an arrogant prick, is a super bro on his socials, but he’s legally free and clear, despite previous accusations.  He’s an obvious upgrade to any team’s starting rotation, and he would cost a team practically nothing, so let’s not duck the obvious fact that he’s getting the Colin Kaepernick treatment here.

But make no mistake, someone will bite eventually.  MLB is no NFL, where there are (allegedly) numerous QB options “better than” Kaepernick, MLB teams always need pitching help, and one team will bite eventually.  Whether it’s two weeks left in Spring Training, or a July acquisition after watching him pitch in the independents or at a private showcase, baseball teams always need pitching, and a cheap and free and clear pitcher of Trevor Bauer’s capabilities will not go unemployed all year long.  But it will be a one-season deal, because once he takes an MLB mound again and proves he still can get the job done, he’ll be back to making millions in 2025.

I know it’s not going to be the Braves, because they’re too high and mighty on their own brand and reputation, but I would be absolutely stoked as a fan who wants to win if it were.  I would love to see the Braves meet the Dodgers in the NLCS, and a very motivated Trevor Bauer marches into Dodger Stadium and fires a statement shutdown performance against the organization that let him hang out to dry.

Someone else is definitely going to get the bargain of the century, when they blink first and sign Trevor Bauer, and I’ll be waiting to harvest my e-cred for when I’m right about this layup of a prediction.

Anthony Rendon is hilariously unbelievable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol: Angels third baseman, Anthony Rendon, goes on the record, opining that the baseball season is too long and that it should be shortened

We got to shorten the season, man,” Rendon said. “There’s too many dang games–162 games in 185 days or whatever it is. Man. No. We gotta shorten this bad boy up. Let’s go.

Here’s why this quote from this particular player is amusing for all the wrong reasons: Anthony Rendon hasn’t played even 60 games a season, much less close to 162 games, in four straight years.  Granted, 2020 was the COVID-shortened season, but between 2021-2023, he’s played in just a diminutive 30% of games that the Angels have had.

Furthermore, he’s halfway through a contract that’s paying him $245M over seven years and it’s safe to say that he’s basically already on the hall of fame of worst free agent contracts in baseball history.  To say that he’s been a bust is an understatement, the guy has been ducking his job as if his job were to avoid playing in baseball games by any means necessary.  He’s been mysteriously injured for the last four years with no real understanding to what’s been ailing him, and he even got himself suspended for a week, when he got involved with a heckler in Oakland.

As many internet comedians have pointed out, he shortens his own season anyway, so it seems redundant that he’d put himself in the line of fire like this in the first place.  But I think my favorite observation was one that I had myself, that basically nobody seems to hate the game that has made him a gozillionaire, more than Anthony Rendon:

Love something as much as Anthony Rendon hates baseball

The man is truly unbelievable.  I feel for the Angels, because between losing Ohtani, they’re stuck with an albatross like Rendon, who clearly has phoned in his career at this point, and will stick around nursing injuries and pretending like he can’t play for the remainder of his deal, and after banking $245M bones, I don’t even think he’s going to bother doing the thing where he starts trying to play hard again within the last two years of his deal, so that he could possibly try to position himself to getting another big contract.  He’ll be 35 and 36 in the final years of his contract, and considering he already hates playing baseball right now, there’s absolutely no way he’s going to try and stick with a job he hates so much in 2-3 years.

The Braves are the High Expectations Asian Dad of MLB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Even though I don’t pay nearly as much attention to baseball as much as I used to, it can’t be said that I don’t know the Atlanta Braves.  Going into the offseason it was painfully obvious what the team’s needs were, which was pitching, pitching, pitching and moar pitching, because as the Braves were painfully exploited, their lack of pitching absolutely blew up in their face once the playoffs began.

They might have had the greatest offense in a century, and even with Ronald Acuña pulling a disappearing act in the playoffs, you can’t win baseball games if you can’t prevent the other team from scoring more runs than you do.

But in spite of the very obvious glaring need, I what was going to happen to the Braves before the offseason even really began.  Their name would be thrown into the hat on just about every notable starting pitching candidate, but one-by-one, they would lose in every single sweepstakes, usually because the Braves were too cheap, or unwilling to outbid any competitive suitors in terms of money or trade chips.  And once all the major names were off the board, the Braves would then land on picking up a starting pitcher that was too old, coming off injury/down year, both, or some other reason that made them available to the Braves and not all the other teams who are willing to dole out money like white people raising taxes on minorities.

And the Braves front office would pat themselves on the back and applaud themselves for not going over-budget, not locking themselves to a free agent contract that has any modicum of chance of being labeled a colossal bust, and then the contingent of Barves fans who believe Alex Anthopolous or any of the other Braves’ front office stooges are incapable of making bad business decisions with applaud them to, and the Braves will go into 2024, not a terrible team, but not exactly the world beaters that are expected to compete for the World Series.

Sure enough, that’s pretty much exactly what happened this off-season, and absolutely nothing that has transpired throughout the entire baseball winter has been a surprise to me, as it pertains to the Atlanta Braves.

To quickly summarize, the Braves’ name was associated to quality pitchers like Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Tyler Glasnow, Dylan Cease and even lol, Shohei Ohtani.  Nola used the Braves to leverage moar money before re-signing with the Phillies.  Sonny Gray signed a fairly reasonable deal with the St. Louis Cardinals so it stands to believe the Braves probably low-balled him and he joined a rebuilding Cards squad instead.  Dylan Cease talks appear to have evaporated for the time being, so the Braves probably were not willing to acquiesce on whatever the White Sox wanted from them, and not only did the Dodgers naturally win the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, days later they managed to swipe Tyler Glasnow from the Rays and secure him for several years, before doing the same thing with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, building a monster super squad in the process.

So with one part of my predicted Braves offseason complete, the second part came to fruition when the Braves traded one of their better prospects, Vaughn Grissom, to the Boston Red Sox for, Chris Sale.

A decade ago, landing Chris Sale would’ve been a boon, because he was easily one of the best pitchers in the game in the 2010’s decade.  But here’s a guy that almost as soon as he turned 30 years old, fell off a cliff.  His numbers started plummeting, he blew out his arm and required Tommy John Surgery, and has been battling a parade of random injuries since then.  He did manage to pitch over 100 innings last season, but to a far less effective 4.30 ERA than when he was still good at baseball.  His strikeout rates were still decent, but he was getting hammered when people did connect, allowing 15 homers in his limited duties.

The Braves landing Chris Sale at the expense of a prospect the caliber of Vaughn Grissom, I told my friend, was about the most Braves transaction ever, because it truly was.  They biffed on all of the available high-tier starting pitching options, and then settled on getting a high-risk, formerly-good player, because of cost, and with a litany of hopes and dreams attached that he can bounce back to being the dominant force he was throughout the 2010’s, a decade later and through tons of injuries.

And to make matters worse, they locked themselves into this union by extending him for two more years at $38 million, and I’m too lazy to look up the specifics, prior to this, they were only on the hook for around $500k of his 2024 salary, while the Red Sox had to pay the rest, but I’m assuming that that’s no longer the case with a new contract in tow.

But basically, the modus operandi of the Atlanta Braves is always avoid the risk of high-cost assets, even if means the team as a whole is hampered by mediocre alternatives.  They will never splurge on top-tier talent, and always pick up guys who are coming off of down years, injuries, or assumed to just be needing “a change of scenery.”  The Braves always seem to think they can always operate by getting okay talent and that they’ll magically outperform their expectations because they’re playing for the high and mighty Atlanta Braves, which is fine if you went into every single year with no aspirations other than not sucking.

They’re basically the High-Expectations Asian Dad of baseball, where they’re always banking on everyone to outperform their peripherals and history, and are full of nothing but loathing disappointment if and when they don’t succeed.

The Braves haven’t really played with their balls out since Ted Turner unloaded the team to Liberty Media, and Braves Corporate hasn’t shown that they don’t care about on-field results as much as they care about appeasing the shareholders, so I guess if that’s their goal, then they’re doing a bang-up job of being above average.

Seriously though, Chris Sale and Jarred Kelenic aren’t going to fix the team and get them any closer to getting over the hurdle of the October Phillies or any other playoff team they run into, should they even make the playoffs in 2024.  As good as Spencer Strider has been, it’s been two straight Octobers in which he’s faltered, Charlie Morton isn’t getting any younger, Chris Sale is still a gigantic question mark on what we’re going to get from an older, busted up version, and Max Fried might be the only reliable pitcher the team has, and only because it’s his walk year, and he’s going to be pitching for his next contract.

Not very promising going into 2024, but then again, I’m not convinced that Braves Corporate really cares about the team’s success as long as the annual report continues to show high profits.  But as much as the Braves have sucked throughout yet another offseason, there’s always a measure of satisfaction at knowing that I’m still usually right when it comes to matters pertaining to the Braves being the Barves, and being right always feels good.

Not my MiLB logo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently I missed this way back from September: but Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball have agreed to change the official logo of Minor League Baseball

And of course this wouldn’t be a post if I didn’t, but I absolutely hate it, thanks.

Fewer things are a sign of mediocrity and spinning wheels like a logo rebranding.  This was not a case like the Cleveland Indians really needing to get rid of a horrifically racist mascot, this was the case of some bored corporate stooges looking for things that weren’t broken and decided to fix them anyway, to justify their existences.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the previous MiLB logo.  It was subtle, it was understandable, and most importantly, it was just different enough to where the shape and brand positioning of it was always consistent to MLB standards, but the visual identity of the icon itself was different enough for those looking to understand that this was Minor League and not the MLB icon that any sports fan or casual could understand.

In one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken with my mom, I’m wearing the old MiLB logo generic shirt.

Now this new crappy logo is basically identical to the MLB logo, except the batter is aligned to the left, and instead of a baseball coming towards the batter, it now looks like the batter has sat looking at four pitches that are now past him, and considering the escalating rate of strikeouts throughout the last half-century, the guy in the logo has probably struck-out, as much as the logo itself does in my opinion.

I hate to say it, but there are a lot of baseball fans that aren’t particularly intelligent.  The Gwinnett Braves used the excuse that there were people that actually managed to confuse tickets for G-Braves tickets for tickets for the Atlanta Braves, which I didn’t think was really a believable excuse, but I’m also not going to pretend like baseball fans are always the smartest people in the world either.  This new logo is going to 100% confuse people into thinking they’re going to Major League games and buying Major League apparel, but perhaps that really is the end game, and I’m just being hyper critical of a tactic that I think is petty, but is really some corporate shills really living in 2050 and playing chess.

And I don’t understand why they’ve put a color palette behind it, especially of two shades of blue.  MLB logos, especially on apparel, namely baseball caps, often times already ditch their own color palette and adopt the primary and secondary colors of the team, or they just go reverse white, as not to compete with the colors of the teams, especially ones that don’t utilize the navy and red palette of the MLB logo.  This Carolina/Dook blue combo logo just seems odd and uncharacteristic to professional baseball in general, where it seems like the vast majority of teams utilize shades of red, at all levels of the game.  For all the teams like the Blue Rocks or the Stone Crabs or the Pelicans that utilize shades of blue, there are teams like the Redbirds, Nuts, Crawdads and much more where adding a logo of blues into their branding is more like shoehorning a horse’s hoof into a toddler’s shoe.

Either way, I am very much not a fan of the new MiLB logo.  It is uncreative, homogenized, convoluted, and was something that never needed to be updated in the first place.  Not that I’m going to many baseball games at all these days, but a team’s branding is going to have to work just a little bit harder to make me decide to impulsively drop some cash on any team merch if it’s going to have this little blue turd of a brand slapped onto it.

There may be four stars on the logo, but if it were up to me, it would have none.

Whew. Let’s talk about Shohei Ohtani

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The whew in the title has nothing to do with any sort of relief I may be feeling that I do not have to shave my balls, because anyone with a brain knew that there was no chance in hell that Shohei Ohtani was going to sign with the Atlanta Braves.  I would’ve felt comfortable betting my house that Ohtani wasn’t going to sign with the Braves, frankly.  The whew in the title really is just in regards to how much there is to unpack, now that the free agent of the millennium has finally been signed and taken off the table and the rest of MLB can move on with its tumultuous life.

It actually happened a few days ago, and I just didn’t have the opportunity to sit down and put all my knee-jerk reactions down to text, but for those who missed it, uber-star Shohei Ohtani ended his not-so silent quest for a free agent contract, and has chosen to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers, up the I-5 from Anaheim, at an earth-shattering $700 million dollars over the next ten years.

This wasn’t just the most expensive contract in Major League Baseball history, this is supposedly the biggest professional athlete contract in all sports’ histories, surpassing even guys like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo much less Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer.  Do the math, and it’s a guy who’s going to be getting paid $70 million dollars a year to play a children’s game.

And the thing is, most people haven’t bothered to care or learn, but Ohtani’s ability to pitch is completely off the table until like 2025, as he will be recovering from major elbow surgery over the span of now until most of 2024.  The Dodgers knew this, and they still were comfortable with giving him the biggest contract in history; he’s a remarkable hitter no doubt, but I can think of 2-3 guys I’d have pursued alternatively instead of dropping $700M on someone whom I’ll only be getting half their skillset for the start of the contract.

Whatever though, the goose chase is over, and Ohtani is going to be a Dodger for the next decade, and the rest of MLB fanbases can bemoan the rich getting richer, as the Dodgers pick up yet another marquee free agent, and their payroll looks to balloon way past what the Mets just set the bar to the year prior.  Frankly I’m not surprised that he went to the Dodgers, because as much as I knew he wasn’t going to land on the Braves, I figured he was probably either going to stay with the Angels, or go to the Dodgers or the Phillies, because those seem to be the only two teams that players actively want to end up going to these days.  And in spite of some gallant efforts by the Toronto Blue Jays, I’m sure Ohtani’s camp reminded him of the colossal pain in the ass that playing in Canada is like with all the constant customs hangups as well as Canada’s high taxes for services that he’d probably never use.

The thing is, after the breaking news of Ohtani’s signing occurred, what I really was the most curious about was the minute details of the contract, namely opt-out clauses as well as my favorite footnote in sport contracts, deferred monies.  At first, it was really hush-hush, leading people to believe that he was just going to get $70M a year, plain and simple, but baseball contracts are never plain and simple, and are astounding when they are.

When the news first came out, none of these details were made available, but ironically in the time between breaking news to when I could actually have some time to write about it, the things I cared about emerged, and hoo boy, are they some really interesting and unprecedented things.

Continue reading “Whew. Let’s talk about Shohei Ohtani” →

Of course Ichiro dominated

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unsurprising: 50-year old Ichiro throws a complete-game shutout against a team of Japan’s girls’ high school all-stars in a 4-0 victory.  Final pitching line:

9.0 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 116 P

In America, there was a game where retired MLB players went up against the best female high schoolers in the country, it probably would be much more relaxed, most of the retired MLB players would probably be poking around the bush to find out which of the girls were of legal age, and the general competitive nature of the game wouldn’t be very high. 

You’d see guys like Mark Buerhle and Jayson Werth and Nick Swisher, all out of shape, retirement guts starting to peek over their belt lines, and laughing at everything, trying to get in the good graces of barely legal teenagers.  Their pitches would be meatballs, get crushed, and they’d laugh and wave their arms around dismissively, pretending like they’re just having a good time.  At the plate, they’d goof off and hit from their opposite sides, and not really be very effective. 

The final score might still be like 5-3 for the old guys because there would inevitably one tryhard on the team like Craig Biggio who is still in great shape and that wants to win, and will hit a late-inning go-ahead home run, but the whole vibe of the event would be very exhibition, everyone has fun, the girls all get to take selfies with former pros, and one or two lucky former pro gets the digits of some 18-year old with loose morals and daddy issues.

But in Japan, a team of former players led by Ichiro, and including at least Daisuke Matsuzaka because I don’t care enough to try and dig up what the rest of the roster might have consisted of, going up against a team of the best high school girl players in the nation, is basically walking onto just another battlefield.  No different than going up against the Allied Powers, the Orix Buffaloes, the New York Yankees or Cleveland Indians.

I love how Ichiro basically pulls the beer league softball captain mentality out and obviously has to be the pitcher, because as everyone remembers in little league, the pitcher is usually the best player on the team.  Just because the opposition is a bunch of girls, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get the horns.

And then he proceeds to pitch like Walter Johnson against a bunch of teenagers, throwing 86 mph fastballs and nasty breaking sliders against a bunch of kids who have probably seen neither in their high school-caliber careers.  Ichiro is the guy that is brought in to make them feel excited to get to meet a national hero and treasure, but once the game gets going, he starts demoralizing them because his foot is completely floored on the gas, and they realize that he’s kind of a tryhard dick for going so ham against them.

Frankly, after the game, Ichiro probably beat himself with a whip like that dude from the DaVinci Code because he gave up five hits and walked two to a bunch of teenage girls.  Or the fact that he only got two hits instead of four, because you know he probably thought he was going to hit for the cycle against the lower velocity of high school girls, compared to the heat he faces in Spring Training or in all the games that the Mariners apparently still let him attend to in full playing gear.

The point it, it’s about as surprising as finding out that the American Healthcare system is a complete joke of a racket, that Ichiro tryharded like a motherfucker against a team of high school girls.  To his credit, he would have gone full tryhard against anyone regardless of their age, sex or any other category, but there’s no telling the quality of the numbers he would have put up.  The guy lives and breathes baseball, and I still maintain that when the day comes in which his body is unable to play the game or do any baseball activities, Ichiro will go homicidal.