Originally Posted by Virtus_Probi
Was reading last season that Ichiro's whole life is baseball and he doesn't know what he's going to do once he doesn't play anymore.
I'm not sure if he's the type of person who is interested in managing...
He may be the last of a dying breed, the MLB hitter who concentrates on making contact and trying to beat it out rather than hitting solid line drives or lofting the ball deep...he was really a baseball slapper for those who are familiar with fastpitch softball. I have seen that he can put on a power show in BP, but I wonder how well that would have carried over to the actual games. Ty Cobb (a much larger man) disdained power hitting as brutish, uncultured, and antiscientific, and claimed he could have hit plenty of HRs if he had been interested in them...of course, Babe Ruth said he could have hit .600 compared to Cobb's .400 if he had been trying for mere base hits instead of HRs. The men became good friends later in life...
I totally agree. Most sports figures these days are in for the fame, the money and so forth. The last couple of years or so Ichiro has known he was declining. Most athletes have left the sport long before they are 40. Here he is at 45. I think his mission these past few years was to teach the nuances of the game.
