You are currently browsing posts tagged with Baseball Players
BIRTHDAY CELEBRASIAN! Ichiro Suzuki
Happy birthday to Ichiro, who turns 36 today!
2009 was a huge year for the mononymous outfielder: he set a major league-record of nine straight seasons with 200 or more hits, finished the season with a league-leading 225 hits, hit his first career walk-off home run (against the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, no less), and even drew his first career ejection for arguing a called third strike.
But hey, we’re talking about a dude who’s single-handedly proven to Americans that Asians can bring it on the baseball diamond, small ball can be just as captivating as long ball, and pokey ears can be weirdly hot, so Ichiro defying expectations is nothing new.
Speaking of defying expectations, here he is from a few years back telling Bob Costas what his favorite American expression is:
TRANSLASIAN: “August in Kansas City, it’s hotter than two rats in a fucking wool sock.”
Filed under: Asian Baseball Players, Ballers, Baseball Players, Ichiro, Ichiro Suzuki, Japanese Athletes, Japanese Ballers, MLB, Records, The Seattle Mariners
BABEWATCH: Dave Roberts
New England Sports Network’s (NESN) Red Sox play-by-play guy Don Orsillo and Dave RobertsName: Dave Roberts
Hails from: Southern California
Ethnicity: Blasian (Roberts’ mother is Japanese)
Occupation: Retired baseball player and newly-hired NESN studio analyst
Why He’s a Babe: Admittedly, I’m biased. Because without Dave Roberts and The Steal, there is no Bloody Sock Comeback after being down 3-0 to the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, there is no World Series win for the first time in 86 years, there is probably–if you subscribe to the Ray Bradbury school of thought where the future hinges on the smallest of incidents–no second World Series win in 2007. There is most likely only more misery, pessimism, and teeth-gnashing for Red Sox Nation, forever and ever amen. But what’s so appealing about the former outfielder, really, is that he was undersized as a player, not a power hitter, not a star, with a a so-so throwing arm–totally forgettable, in many ways–but he always managed to find a way on base and to make an impact in a game, earning a spot in the top 10 in steals for five straight seasons when he played for the Dodgers, the Padres, and the Giants in the National League (it would have been six straight had he not come in a paltry…11th in 2007). And playing above your god-given talent level? That’s the definition of being a baller. And being a baller is, as they’d say in New England, wicked hot. Plus, look at those adorable crinkly eyes!
Roberts is once again proving just how scrappy and memorable he is by filling in in the booth for beloved Sox color commentator Jerry “Rem Dawg” Remy while Remy recovers from lung cancer surgery. Of Roberts’s game-calling debut, play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo said what’s been said of Roberts innumerable times throughout his unlikely career: “I couldn’t have been more impressed.”
The StealFiled under: Baseball Players, Blasians, Boston Red Sox, Dave Roberts, Don Orsillo, Jerry Remy, Mixed People, MLB, NESN, Red Sox Nation, The Bloody Sock Comeback, The Steal
