Samurai Bats

Gotta love the Japanese approach to tools:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/sp...o-hitting.html

Quote:

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During a game for the Orix Blue Wave in Japan in 1999, Ichiro Suzuki struck out and returned to the dugout unusually frustrated. In a fit of anger, he destroyed his black Mizuno bat. Embarrassed, Suzuki wrote a letter of apology to the craftsman who had made his bats by hand from Tamo wood, grown on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Such was the respect that Suzuki felt for the process that created the bats, which he wielded with such skill.

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Ichiro is such a baller.


The Mariners were clearly not thrilled with the detour before opening a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday.

“To tell the truth, I’m not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to,” Ichiro said through an interpreter. “If I ever saw myself saying I’m excited going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’m lying.”

In 2004 Ichiro broke George Sisler's record for hits in a season. When he was in St. Louis a few years later for the All Star Game, he went to pay his respects at Sisler's grave. "I wanted to do that for a grand upperclassman of the baseball world... I think it's only natural for someone to want to do that, to express my feelings in that way."

Understands the full true meaning of Serious.