Sounds Like Someone Wants A Slumber Party

Any Japanese baseball followers who can enlighten me please do because I need to know if Ichiro and Dice-K were lovers or something while each was playing in the Land of the Rising Sun. The reason I'm asking is this translation of a quote from Ichiro about the Red Sox phenom I saw at MLB Trade Rumors.

"I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul."

It's cool if they were lovers. I've seen the way Ichiro dresses, it's not something that's going to make me too crazy. And if Ichiro does get traded to the Red Sox, as some have posited, it would complete the transformation of the Red Sox from Yankee haters to Yankee copycats. They've expanded the budget, signed free agents to ludicrous deals and getting Ichiro would seemingly give them a homoerotic subplot to rival anything Jeter and A-Rod have got going on.

Comments

[Oborozukuyo]

I understand how you might find such quote positively weird. However, I followed them a lot over the decade, so I wasn't really surprised to hear that quote.

Well, think of it as if it's two throw-back Samurais preparing for a duel of the life time. No exaggeration here. They have been known to have such mentality.

Their first encounter in 1999 was a legendary thing. Matsuzaka was a fresh-from-high-school rookie and named Ichirou as the one player he looked forward pitching to. On that occasion, Matsuzaka ended up fanning Ichirou -- already entering his prime -- three times in a row, certainly a feat nobody could pull off in Japan those days.

If anything, I was amused to find that the quote probably meant Ichirou didn't really find somebody in Matsuzaka's calibur while competing in MLB all these years, however unlikely that might sound to us. From the tone of his quote, it appears that he's unsure whether Matsuzaka today is worthy to be his arch-nemesis -- years have past since their last encounter -- but he's looking forward to finding it out himself.

[The Feed]

Wow, that's the kind of analysis I was looking for. I appreciate it. I watched the video and clearly it was a big matchup but I didn't realize the level of backstory between them. Makes today's game a doozy.

[scotts]

ichiro wardrobe i think in last weeks sports illustrated.