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Baldrick · 10-03-2004, 05:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

i'm confused. why do people say ichiro isn't a team player?

I'm a huge Ichiro fan, always have been since he entered the league (not just for his hitting, but also for his defence), but this September 21st article sums up alot of the media's feelings on Ichiro. It's pretty poorly written, obviously very anti-Ichiro for the sake of being anti-Ichiro, and I disagree with about 75% of it, but a couple of the points do give even a monster Ichiro reason to go "hmmm...".

cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/story/7705021

Quote:

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- So, what are we to make of Ichiro Suzuki's relentless pursuit of George Sisler's 84-year-old record for most hits in a season?

Why does Ichiro Suzuki bunt? For starters, he gets from home to first in 3.7 seconds.(Getty Images)
Is it a trumpet-and-fanfare event that deserves red carpet and high praise?

Or is it a hollow march that has threatened to become a selfish sideshow in these waning days of 2004?

Sisler's record of 257 hits in one season is a striking, hand-crafted relic from the past that still stands out amid the newer, sleeker records of today.

The fact that no one has put the mark of the old St. Louis Browns star into storage -- not Ted Williams, not Joe DiMaggio, not Pete Rose, not Tony Gwynn -- magnifies the degree of difficulty and amplifies Ichiro's achievement.

With 243 hits after Tuesday's victory in Anaheim -- including a major-league record 207 singles -- Ichiro currently is on pace to finish at 261.

"I plan on three hits every night from him," said Seattle Mariners manager Bob Melvin, who got five hits from Ichiro on Tuesday. "Really, it's gotten to the point where he's doing that quite frequently.

"Three hits every night, he won't just be looking at Sisler's record -- he'll be looking at 300 hits in a season."

But with the Mariners reeking in their worst season since 1983 and with Ichiro having failed to even score 100 runs despite all of those times on base (he's at 92), how much, exactly, does his singular achievement mean?

More nagging, and more to the point, is this: As his team has stayed far south, has Ichiro's pursuit of the record become self-centered enough to cheapen the record?

Twice in two days earlier this month, with a runner on second base and two out in a one-run game, when Seattle has needed the American League's leading hitter to knock a run-scoring hit, Ichiro has gone against convention and bunted.

The overwhelming conclusion among those who were watching: Ichiro is currently much more concerned with Ichiro than he is with helping his team.

"Revolting," said an AL scout who was there. "He can't read the scoreboard?"

On each of those attempts -- Sept. 8 against Cleveland and Sept. 9 vs. Boston -- the bunts have been inning killers. Each bunt rolled harmlessly back to the pitcher. And the Mariners, who need wins like a fire needs oxygen, failed to score.

Understandably, Ichiro's teammates aren't eager to touch this subject. What speaks volumes, in terms of perception, is that Melvin and hitting coach Paul Molitor spoke with him in the aftermath of the second bunt.

"We talked through those things," Melvin said. "His state of mind as a leadoff hitter is to get on base and pass it on to the guys who are supposed to be driving in runs. He's not doing anything to be selfish. He's doing it to get on base and let the other guys drive in runs."

The problem, of course, is that Bret Boone, Edgar Martinez and the rest have not been driving in the runs this summer. The Mariners are last in the league in both runs scored and RBI.

"With runners in scoring position, two out and a tied game, a game you're ahead by one run or a game you're behind by one run, his average tells you he has the best chance to get a hit," Molitor said. "As good as Randy Winn has been, baseball tells you that you'd like to see (Ichiro) swing the bat. Yes, (bunting in that situation) increases his chances of getting a hit because the third baseman is playing back.

"It was more Bob and I trying to get him to understand we'd like to see him swing. It happened early in the year a couple of times, and it's happened a couple of times within the last month.

"Talking to him about it when I did, I didn't get the impression that he was trying to do something to be selfish. But I told him it would be helpful in those situations to swing."

Suzuki, 30, is very well aware of the record -- and has been for some time. After a sluggish April in which he hit only .255, he quickly warmed and has been putting on a show ever since.

Of course, Ichiro puts on a riveting show even when he's not chasing a record. One of the most unique players in the game, he wields his bat like a racket and maneuvers the baseball around the field like a tennis ball. He flips it, pushes it, slices it, pulls it, slaps it and guides it, his swing effortlessly melting into his getaway from the batter's box all in one fluid motion. At 3.7 seconds from home to first out of the left-handed batter's box, Ichiro is almost impossible to nail on anything but a routine ground ball.

Even then, it's nearly impossible.

"He moves a little more in the box than you'd like to teach a guy, and he's out in front (of the ball) more," Melvin said. "But his hand-eye coordination is better than anybody I've ever seen."

He also works as hard as anybody else. Ichiro studies film of every one of his at-bats. If the Mariners have a day off, he's usually the first one out for early hitting the next day.

Historically, he has never walked much -- 45 times in 694 plate appearances last season, for example -- which is part of his uniqueness. Other leadoff hitters take pitches, work counts and allow the rest of the lineup to see what kind of stuff a pitcher has on a given night. Ichiro slaps and runs.

But the Mariners asked him this spring to be a little more patient at the plate. He promptly got off to an awful start. In addition to that .255 April average, there was the .309 on-base percentage. Ichiro had become a big part of the reason why Seattle's season was finished before it ever began.

"We talked some philosophy this spring that, over time, some pitchers did not need to throw strikes to get him out," Molitor said. "We talked about getting himself into better pitch counts.

"To be honest with you, it didn't work very well. I talked to Melvin and we set him free, so to speak. He was respectful to what Bob and I tried to tell him, but I think it was more the mental freedom."

The Mariners "set him free" during late April, early May. He batted .400 in May with a .436 on-base percentage and he has been on base pretty much ever since.

He is believed to be the first major-league player ever to have three months in a season with 50 or more hits (he had 51 in May, 50 in July and 56 in August). He set a major-league record Aug. 11 for most hits in his first four seasons (841 to that point). His 900 hits in his first four seasons are a record for any four-year span, according to research from the Elias Sports Bureau, better than the 879 Kirby Puckett collected between 1986 and 1989.

Yet within his 243 hits are 207 singles ... and only 23 doubles, five triples, eight homers and 55 RBI. The disparity between the singles and the extra-base hits is eye-catching, particularly for someone as swift as Ichiro.

Nevertheless, next up: Sisler.

"I've heard the name a lot lately," Ichiro said the other night through an interpreter. "I definitely know the name now."

He knows the name so well that, as he conducts his own stretch run, the Mariners have helped him manage the attention by organizing media briefings following the first game of every series. If you want to ask Ichiro anything about chasing Sisler, that's when you do it.

Passing Sisler, whose record 257 hits came during baseball's old 154-game schedule, clearly is something Ichiro wants to do.

"Besides the record, as players, you want to get good results and do well," said Ichiro, who was hitting .372 through Tuesday night's game. "(The record) is just something that comes with it."

He is aware of the criticism over his bunt attempts, and he answers quickly, with a sharp tone in his voice, when asked about it.

"If you looked over the four years I've been here, I've done that a lot in those situations," he says. "I think people who have been watching my play recently might say something about it.

"People should have said something about it four years ago."

The difference, of course, is that four years ago, the Mariners were winning. Four years ago, Boone was slugging 37 homers with 141 RBI, Martinez was booming 40 doubles, John Olerud was still swinging, David Bell was helping and Seattle simply needed Ichiro to get on base.

Now, the Mariners are losing, the middle of lineup is more muddled and silent than fog and the coaching staff is on pins and needles with offseason changes expected to cut a wide swath through the joint.

Now, is it too much to expect the AL's leading hitter to at least attempt to knock in a runner from second with two out in a one-run game?

On one hand, what Ichiro is doing is phenomenal. Since 1930, only three players have punched out even as many as 240 hits: Boston's Wade Boggs (240 in 1985), Anaheim's Darin Erstad (240 in 2000) and Ichiro (242 in 2001).

"You talk about a record that's 80 years old. That's lasted a lot longer than the home-run record," says San Diego second baseman Mark Loretta, who was the National League hits leader until Florida's Juan Pierre passed him this week -- and Ichiro has 44 more hits than Pierre's 199.

"Just put in that context, it's amazing what Ichiro is doing."

Yes, breaking an 84-year-old record is a very cool thing.

But passing it by sometimes compromising the game -- and, possibly, wins -- for a player's own goals? That becomes a gray area very, very quickly.

No question, aside from tracking Martinez's final days before retirement, Ichiro is the one thing worth watching in Seattle these days.

From his perspective, how much joy has been drained from Ichiro's Great Chase given how poorly the Mariners have played this season?

"I think it would be worse if we were playing bad and I was playing bad," he said through his interpreter. "Even if the team was doing well or not doing well, you still have to go out and do your best to do well."