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Fan Gauge: Ichiro Suzuki

Once again, vote based on your own personal opinion, using whatever criteria you like.

Poll
I, the Mariners fan:
Love Ichiro
1504 votes
Like Ichiro
221 votes
Don't have a strong opinion of Ichiro
10 votes
Don't like Ichiro
28 votes
Hate Ichiro
28 votes

1791 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs  |  104 comments

Comments

I loe Ichiro.
I hae him.
Is that love in Japanese?
iie.
"Love" would be "ai"

IIRC. Ichiro-sama wa ai o shimasu, or something like that. It’s been nine years so it might not be very right.

I was doing to default to "daisuki" but you may remember better than I do.
"Ai shiteiru" is almost never used except in romantic scenes in incredibly cheesy soap operas or TV shows.

“Daisuki” is probably a lot more appropriate in this situation, in the sense that “love” here indicates a stronger version of “like” rather than meaning we feel a romantic attraction towards Ichiro. If you literally want to marry Ichiro and have is babies, then “Ichiro-san (or sama) o ai shiteiru” would be appropriate.

So what you're saying is that female fans should use "ai"
What's not to love?

I voted love because fashion is not part of my criteria.
Skinny jeans are no-no in my books but for you Ichiro, I can make an exception.

Don’t ever leave us.

This may be even more one-sided than the Guti poll
10% of respondents are trolls
Fogel has split personalities.
I like most of the players on our team
I wish that this were true but plenty of honest-to-God Mariners fans hate him
I have his jersey!
Well, that makes two of us!
I would get a Ichi jersey but too many people have them.

I think I’m gonna get a Gutz jersey.

That's going to be the next biggest seller.

Count it.

So do I

I mean who wouldn’t want to have one? I think being a Mariners fan almost dictates having an Ichiro and Hernandez jersey (now that the extension thing is out of the way).

Jerseys are damn expensive.
My autographed Felix M's jersey cost me $40 including shipping off of eBay!

This was in 2005… (and yes, it includes authenticity certificate!)

Fucking ridiculous.

So I guess there is benefits to noone knowing anything about the mariners.

I don't have either one of their jerseys and have never even briefly considered purchasing them!
I have a 15 year old Griffey jersey and two blank ones!
Same, have a 15 year old Griffey jersey

Cept it’s one of the green ones most people hated.

I have three with no name, but the number eleven.

My playing number was always eleven, and I absolutely adore edgar, so works out both ways.

You only like shitty players anyway
I'm sure they lie to God every day.
I don't understand how people don't have a strong opinion of him

seems like you would either love or hate him

I was very close to voting no opinion.

He’s like the forgotten love.

Do we need to do this in every poll?
Ruh rohs.

Did Sec 108 vote “Hate”? Hey, that rhymes.

Stop rhyming and I mean it.
Unrelated, but by chance does anyone want a peanut?
Haha... that's definitely related.
No I didn't, but I am fucking sick of people who don't vote love being called trolls.

Also, I have not voted hate or love once because baseball players do not deserve such a level of emotional response from me. Except for Yuni. As I said before, I do not judge others for having those feelings because when I was younger I did too. I just don’t anymore.

...Because I'm being 100% serious here
I know your style and am aware you are not serious.

It is the other kids reaction to these comments that is driving me nuts.

I've been voting based on my baseball feelings for the player.

If I was voting relative to my wife or kids, I’d vote “don’t have a strong opinion of” for everyone. The poll is based on whatever criteria you’d like, so at least we’re both following the directions.

Seriously

People are entitled to whatever opinions they might have. It doesn’t matter. If I expected a unanimous answer I wouldn’t post a poll.

This is why I'd like votes to not appear in a persons profile.

At the very least seed them in with comment history to make them more difficult to find. This probably wouldn’t help with advanced searches and specific names, would it

Agreed
Or at the very least maybe don't open these poll threads to comments

“using whatever criteria you like” != telling everybody what your criteria are.

I regret leaving them open but I can't stop now
Time to turn from benevolent to malevolent!
But has anything been particularly surprising yet?
Sort of!
It's not related to the voting is it? :(
Love

I would love Ichiro if he were just the personality.
I would love him if it was just his defense and cannon arm.
I would love him if it was just his unique and awesome hitting style.
But he’s all of them, a wonderful Mariner.

Ichiro is the reason I started following baseball again after 1995.
Same here.

Pre-strike I was an Expos fan.

Then I was an Ichiro fan.

Then Ichiro came to America.

Same here

I was a Jays fan, I lost interest via strike/suckage, then Ichiro hooked me again.

My Brother Passionately hates ichiro

He even goes on to claim he’s an overpaid player, I brought up WAR and he returns with “I’m still right, I don’t care about that stat” even though he uses other advance stats to try and back his argument up. Then again, he’s like this with other non baseball issues.

Are you me?

My brother’s exactly that much of a dick.

haha, no.

But he seems to have passionate hate for Ichiro which I don’t understand since he’s a huge M’s fan.

Other advance stats to back up his argument?

What advance stat remotely suggests that Ichiro isn’t worth loving?

ISO?

Not many dingers…

Seriously he has like 4 career homers.

No way he gets in the HOF.

OPS by position or something. You've undoubtedly heard these arguments.

Anything that ignores defense, park, etc.

His BB/K isn't exceptional--0.69 career
I don't have the infatuation that, say, DMZ might have.

But I do love him. He’s wonderful to watch.

When you have a first-ballot HOFer IN HIS PRIME on your club

You vote “love.” That’s the way it is.

Griffey is a first ballot HOFer.
Missed the in his prime.

Got it now.

If this is Griffey in his prime, he surely would not be a first ballot Hall of Famer
He would not, in fact, be a Major League baseball player.
I wonder when a guy hangs around too long if it hurts his 1st ballot chances.

HOF is for a player that is the top of his game during his career. Griffey has not been a top player for the last 4 years or so. He is not playing anywhere near that of a HOFer. if he plays any longer he will have more bad years than good years.

Why would it hurt his chances?

It tarnishes his legacy but does nothing to hurt his chances. Griffey is perhaps the defining major leaguer of the 1990’s.

I think he's a special case.

His prime was so damn good.

I love that he still wants to play.

I respect any player that they have to tear the jersey off of. I thought it was amazingly awesome that Ricky Henderson ended his career trying to steal bases in the Mobile Home County Independent League.

I don’t see any reason why this should count against a players Hall of Fame chances.

"if he plays any longer he will have more bad years than good years."

I disagree a whole bunch.
Just going by OPS+, Griffey’s only posted 2 full seasons below average, last year and 2006. Both of those were above 90. And yes, this year’s a crater.
Factoring in defense certainly boosts all those good years, while lowering the last few bad ones.
He may not have earned his contract all those years as a Red, but he’s had a lot of great years and, like a lot of other HOFers, hung around through some crummy ones.

I could never Love a player

Look I am a Mets fan, and David Wright is awesome but I don’t love him. I love my wife and children, I am a die hard Mets fan and like to see them play well, especially Wright. But if he for some stupid reason was traded, I would still be a Mets fan, I would still get up an dgo to work. If something happened to my family, I could not go to work, i would be devastated. that is love to me

I like Ichiro as a baseball fan. He is a very good part of the game

There is a small chance you are reading a tad too much into what it means to love a player
I think we're using a less serious meaning of love when we vote love

Although if Ichiro were to be traded I’d probably miss a couple days of work.

I don't even think I'd care that much if Lopez was traded
I'll take any excuse to take off work
I took the excuse of Yuni getting traded to have plenty of beers.
I think we all did

Everyone else’s just happened to be celebratory.

Sorry.

YES WE DID IT
Whaaaat? You don't love David Wright like you do your wife and children?

I think you need to reevaluate your priorities.

The poll says "I the mariners fan..."

So…

I love Felix more than my family, friends, or country
Finally, someone with their priorities in order!
ruh roh
I can't decide if this is more or less terrifying for everyone here than the revelation that some of my coworkers read Twilight at work

and others don’t know what an aircraft carrier is

I mean, America's up there

But it’s no Felix.

I don't love players like I love my family.

But I still love certain players. The kind of love that if the player were not on the team it just wouldn’t be the same. There would be a sense of emptiness just like if I had lost a family member. Yes, the difference between the two is magnitude but the general principle is the same.

The need for this conversation baffles me.

How should we compare our love for a grown man that I enjoy watching on TV to the love I feel for my goldfish?

All the polls should be changed to read, "really really really like"

Stop hating your family.

It is all relative.

Besides I love everyone.

I set a place for Ichiro at the dinner table every night.
Some day maybe...
Usually Ichiro is the one who sets the table...

unfortunately, in this offense, he never gets to come home…

I think I'll start doing this every opening day after his retirement.

Like Elijah at Passover.

Ichiro might be the third most important person in the world to me.

And one of the first two is me.

We are using love the same as one would say "I love pumpkin pie."

Though pumpkin pie is mighty attractive, I have no feelings towards it other than “Mmmm delicious.” In the case of this, it’s simply “I love the way this player plays baseball.”

From the insane bat control to the wacky off field antics

I don’t think there’s any player I’ve enjoyed watching more. The fact that he consistently breaks prediction models and continues to defy aging curves is just so much icing on the cake.

The only other person who’s as jaw dropping to watch at the plate, in terms of getting hits off of balls no sane person would swing at, is Vladamir Guerrero; and fuck Vladamir Guerrero.

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