I love Ichiro Suzuki.
Not in a romantic way, but because of what he means to baseball.
Hope.
I've been known to rant from time to time about the inequities of Japanese vs. American baseball.
But there is no way on god's green earth that I'll fly to another country to see A-Rod play.
Even if they could afford him. And certainly not for the 14-15 hours it takes to get here from Japan.
I love these guys. There's at least a dozen of them in my section every game. There are probably thousands of fans just like them every night In Seattle, watching their hero at work. Tonight wasn't as cool a show for them as the night before, but hopefully, they got the weekend package.
But these five guys were like Agent Smith. They moved as one into our section, from parts unknown. And they dogged us (or we them, I'm a little fuzzy on this one) for the rest of the game
After a while, I wasn't sure myself who the real Ichiro was. You make the call.