A baseball drought has hit the Northwest. We were already baseball-less in Portland, thanks to the absurd soccer league rule prohibiting sharing the field with baseball, as if a professional, major league sport has ever been an unadulterated enterprise. But politics, power, and prestige roam the outfield, and Ichiro, iconic favorite of a generation of Seattle Mariner fans, will soon suit up in pinstripes.
Wait! The Yankees are scheduled to play the Mariners in Seattle tonight! Will Ichiro suit up in a Yankee uniform tonight, the same day the trade was announced? Wow! That’s almost like switching sides in the middle of a game.
It now looks like the 2012 season will fall to the Yankees, as of today playing .600 ball. Still, it ain’t over ’till it’s over.
I attended the Mariners’ opening day game in April of 2004, and I caught a foul ball off the bat of Ichiro. I was sitting on the third base side. Ichiro, a left handed batter, hit a hard line drive that curved over the heads of the section to my right, scattering fans, hit the chairs, bounced around, rolled into the aisle, and bounced a couple of steps down, where I swung out of my seat, into the aisle, and scooped it up.
But now, we are Ichiro-less in Seattle, and the baseball drought in the Northwest shows no signs of abating.
Update, 6:44 pm: Ichiro will suit up as a Yankee and play versus the Mariners tonight. The blog is not Twitter, not a box score. Oh, well, so it goes. Good luck, Ichiro.
Update, 10:14 pm: Ichiro goes 1 for 4 in Yankee grey, in 4 to 1 win, Yanks over M’s, M’s held to 3 hits.
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