Hello all. I've been following LL since the start of this season, and for the first time I thought I came across something that might be worth contributing, so I thought I'd give a FanPost a shot. I live in Japan, but am a fan of the Mariners, and so I get something of a different angle than most of you get on their play. I came across these comments from Ichiro regarding his fake flip of the ball to the fans at Yankee Stadium in the Japanese sports news, and from what I can tell, he hasn't made the same comments to any American reporters, so I thought I'd translate them and share them in case anyone else is interested in getting another little insight into Ichiro's head.

When asked why he did it, Ichiro replied, "Well, it just seemed like the fans here [at the new Yankee Stadium] have become too well-behaved, so I figured I should do something to get them going. If you don't provoke them like that, they don't seem to get on your back much." He was, of course, booed for the act, but when he led off the next inning, he was expecting to be booed again, but was surprised to receive a less than hostile reception. "It was pretty disappointing," he said, "I wanted them to boo me." The tone of the whole article suggested that Ichiro felt that the fans at the new Yankee Stadium had become too "precious" and weren't the rude, heckling fans he'd come to expect in New York.

Ichiro also commented on the new stadium, saying how disappointing it was for him as a right-fielder. "With a field this small, you have no leeway to alter your positioning. It's a little boring, frankly, because you have no choice but to field in the same position for each batter. With the fence that close, anything over your head is a home run. So it becomes difficult in right field in this ballpark to use the knowledge you have about the batters, or any gut-feeling you might have, to your advantage." I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the Yankees would be happy to pump up the home-run numbers as well as take away the element of outfield defense.

Sorry if these comments are common knowledge. I found them kind of interesting, so I just thought I'd share.