“If I ever saw myself saying I was excited about going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’d be lying.”
20 points if you can recall who is responsible for that quote. That’s right, it was Ichiro (your 20 points are in the mail). Everyone knows who Ichiro is. Why? Because he’s arguably the best position player to have ever played the game of baseball. And that includes all the professional Dominicans, Cubans, Chinese, Australians, Costa Ricans, South Koreans, Americans, Venezuelans, Dutch, Taiwanese, Canadians, Mexicans, and Japanese that have ever endeavored to be the best in the sport.
Maybe the people in Cleveland don’t like Ichiro so much, but the rest of us do. And everyone knows that Ichiro started his professional baseball career in Japan. He played for the Orix Blue Wave in Nippon Professional Baseball’s (NPB) Pacific league. Huh?
Yes, that’s a fair question. Technically, the Orix Blue Wave do not exist anymore. They are now half of the Orix Buffaloes (the other half being the team formerly known as the Kintetsu Buffaloes), and were Ichiro to one day return to Japan to play out the twilight of his career, he probably wouldn’t have any idea as to where his loyalty is anchored.
But I digress: Ichiro is partly the product of the NPB, and even though there has been (and will continue to be) a steady depletion of the brightest talent produced by Japan (think both Matsuis, Matsuzaka, Nomo, Iwamura, Iguchi, Hasegawa, Johjima, and on and on), it is still a league that generates a lot of interest and a wealth of good baseball.
(Read on …)

Nippon Pro Baseball #1:
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