FIVE MORE YEARS! FIVE MORE YEARS!
Remember the hand-wringing about Ichiro over the winter? The trade rumors? The Padres and Dodgers waiting around to pick him up on the rebound?
SAN FRANCISCO — One of the Mariners’ biggest concerns this season is about to be resolved.
The club is on the verge of locking up Ichiro, their All-Star outfielder whose contract was set to expire after the season, to a five-year contract extension, the Seattle Times has learned. Indications are that the deal will approach $100 million and could be announced Friday.
SUCK ON IT, REST OF THE LEAGUE. Ichiro is our Japanese guy with strangely-translated quotes and you can’t have him. That goes doubly for you, Cleveland.
It’s a good day to be a Mariners fan. We may be losing the Sonics to Oklahoma City and the Seahawks may be incapable of fielding a secondary better than what Rainier Beach High runs out there every fall, but we still have the suprising, contending M’s ready to break our hearts like so many drunken, violent boyfriends that we can’t seem to get up the courage to dump.
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Awesome.
I think this calls for a celebratory reading of fantastic Ichiro quotes.
My favorite:
On going to Cleveland for a one-game makeup: “To tell the truth, I’m not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to,” Ichiro said through an interpreter. “If I ever saw myself saying I’m excited going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’m lying.”
And of course, you linked that quote already.
The P-I also has this story: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/323111_mari11.html