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Itching for Ichiro
He's the fastest man in baseball with the best outfield arm playing for the winningest team, and he doesn't speak to them. He leads the major leagues in batting, is on pace to break a dozen records and has set Japan ablaze, and he doesn't speak to them. "What we are doing is not journalism," says Hideki Okuda of Sports Nippon. "I feel very sad about this." "There are so many of them," says Ichiro, who's embarrassed by the horde wanting to talk only to him, "and only one of me." Occasionally Ichiro speaks to one Japanese writer -- the pool reporter, Keizo Konishi of the Kyodo News -- but only if that writer adheres to strict protocol. The gaggle of Japanese reporters submits their questions to Konishi and then gather together in the corner of the clubhouse and watch breathlessly as, 30 feet away, Konishi timidly loiters near Ichiro, who faces into his locker. When at last Ichiro signals, Konishi tiptoes up, squats respectfully and whispers the questions into the great man's ear. But Ichiro, being a very humble man, answers in only the tiniest of morsels designed to paint himself in the palest light possible. Quotes like "This does not matter" and "Only the team counts" and "It is not my position to answer such a thing." After three or four minutes Konishi rises, bows slightly and trudges back to the huddled mass, bearing no fruit. "Ichiro says, 'This is not the time to think of that,'" he reports, and 46 faces fall like soufflés at a bass drum recital. The Japanese reporters left their wives and kids in February to live in Phoenix and then Seattle hotels, putting in 14-hour days, attending every Mariners game. They have traded bento boxes for Happy Meals. They are here to record the thoughts of the man who was named the most recognizable person in their country, just ahead of the emperor. And he doesn't speak to them. They fantasize about a day when they can ask him one question, face-to-face. Would they ask if he ever has the desire to snap a nude picture of himself and thus collect the rumored $2 million offer from a Japanese publishing company for such a shot? Would they ask how a 160-pound rookie sprite can become, according to Texas Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez, "the best player in the big leagues"? Would they ask about his glamorous marriage to Yumiko, a former TV sports anchor? Or his insatiable desire for autographs? (He desperately wants Wayne Gretzky's and Tiger Woods's.) Or his being the only man in baseball with simply his first name on his back? Or why he speaks to all the American press but to only one of them? Or the reports by the Japanese tabloid Friday of his infidelity? No, no, no. These questions are indelicate. "We must be very, very careful not to offend him," says Konishi, "or he may cut us off completely." In July he and Seattle closer Kazuhiro Sasaki did just that for a week, after Japanese paparazzi got in Ichiro's way as he tried to back out of his garage and one photographer tried to enter Sasaki's town house complex by bribing the gatekeeper. Now the 47 tread carefully, like a Hitchcock character through a roomful of birds. Yet their editors howl for stuff to fill their daily Ichiro spreads, so the writers report the exact time he entered the dugout. They produce charts on his at bats. When Yumiko went to one exhibition game, a Japanese writer reported that Ichiro was "roused" by her and had 21 hits in 31 batting practice pitches. Film at 11! What torments the 47 most is that after they leave, Ichiro suddenly becomes Carrot Top. He does imitations. Yelps Snoop Dogg lyrics. Walks up to opposing Latin catchers and asks, "¿Qué pasa?" He's loved by teammates, who call him the Wizard. They wear T-shirts that read HE'LL FIND A WAY. The other day, in Baltimore, they stole his clothes, leaving him only a Hooters' waitress uniform to wear on the plane home. He vamped the whole way. But when the Japanese reporters are around, he goes back to doing his impression of a rock. Zen koan: What is the sound of two hands typing nothing? Yet they carry on, undaunted, ever hopeful. "I know that someday I will get an interview," says Okuda. "Perhaps when he retires." Ichiro is 27. Issue date: September 17, 2001 Don't miss The Life of Reilly (Total/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, $22.95) -- a best-of compilation of Rick Reilly's columns and features, with a foreword written by Charles Barkley, available now at bookstores everywhere.
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