The Mariners return to the U.S. after a split of their Japan series with the Oakland A’s and a feeling that an old problem, offensive feebleness, won’t go away soon.
Author: Art Thiel
Art Thiel
Never having met a metaphor he could not twist beyond recognition, Art has been illuminating, agitating, amusing and annoying Puget Sound sports readers for a long time. Along with Steve Rudman, he co-founded Sports Press Northwest because it didnt seem right that the Google monster should aggregate daily journalism into oblivion without at least a flesh wound from somebody. Thiel and Rudman labored under the Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe until the print edition died an undeserved death in March, 2009. Art continued on at its online successor seattlepi.com while working on SPNWs creation. His radio commentaries can be heard Friday and Saturday mornings and Friday afternoon on KPLU-FM 88.9. In 2003 he wrote the definitive book about the Seattle Mariners, Out of Left Field, which became a regional bestseller. In 2009, along with Rudman and KJR 950 afternoon host Mike Gastineau, Thiel authored The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a cross between historylink.org and Mad Magazine that has become mandatory reading for any sports fan who has an indoor bathroom. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University as well as two dead papers and a live one, the News Tribune of Tacoma, he has become a fan of entrepreneurial online journalism because it allows him to continue a lifelong passion to take the English language to places it rarely visits willingly, and does not involve the cleaning of kennels or stables.
Thrilling his frenzied national following with four hits, Ichiro followed Dustin Ackley in the lineup for the first time. The Mariners’ eight-year-old idea might just start to work.
The rush has been on for the Mariners since before they left Arizona, and too little time finally left three players behind at the station.
No place in Japan was slammed harder by the earthquake/tsunami of March 3, 2011, than Ishinomaki. On a day off, Mariners and A’s do what they can to deflect the emotional devastation.
The story of Masanori Murakami, who in 1964 became the first Japanese player in MLB, but didn’t stay long, illustrates why Japanese baseball is not threatened by the loss of stars.
Mariners go 0-2 in exhibitions against Japanese teams, and probably relish competition they can handle in AL West rival Oakland to open the season Wednesday and Thurday.
Ichiro’s best days are behind him, but that happens with a lot of star players who still carry on. The Mariners must decide whether they have the team to help carry him to a contract extension.
In his return to Japan, Munenori Kawasaki, the Mariners’ new backup infielder, made a splash bigger than Ichiro in an exhibition game Sunday.
Yamauchi tells Lincoln he won’t show for the Ichiro show this week, when Japan welcomes back its most popular baseball player; another Mariners opportunity lost.
TOKYO — Told that in Japanese baseball, the record holder for sacrifice bunts was held in nearly the same reverence as Americans held home run king Hank Aaron, Mariners shortstop Brendan Ryan’s eyes grew wide. “Really? Oh, man, I should have been born Japanese,” said Ryan, throwing his arms in the air. “I’d be so