Not the Visanthe Shiancoe kind. No, I’ve been a bit down as of late and a bit on the negative side. So in reaction to my Five Most Hated Athletes post, I now bring to you the five athletes that I love unconditionally, forever.
(I had a hard time figuring out #5, but then I looked at Rickie Weeks and knew it was him. I went and saw Huntsville play a Double A game against the Mobile BayBears. It was a loaded team with Rickie, Prince, Tony Gwynn Jr and Brad Nelson. Ever since then I’ve been into him and I will argue with just about anyone about his value to the team. Thinking back to those days I remember only one other game that I went to in Mobile and that was to see the Montgomery Biscuits because Baseball Prospectus told me they had the best prospect in all of baseball, BJ Upton. He didn’t have a great day and even then I knew he wouldn’t last on the infield, but he was only 19 and was probably the best purely talented players I’d ever seen in person. I’ve been following him ever since. I remember him getting called up that season and thinking Lou Piniella was screwing him up with random playing time. In retrospect, this was probably wrong as he was only 19 and not ready for the majors (he didn’t come back until 2006). Everyone remembers what he did in the playoffs this year and it awoken some fandom I had for BJ. I really want this guy to succeed because I think he’s awesome and he’s only going to be 24 in 2009. A full three years before his peak. This guy is going to be good, real good and I am pretty excited to watch it happen.)
We’ve all seen those oh so funny Mariners commercials. The best one pretty much every year is the one with Ichiro, but anyone can watch those. True Ichiro fans scour him out to find the best videos of him from Japan and the best fan related videos of him. Ichiro is a true youtube star and now we have his greatest hits all in one place. Enjoy.
I get a lot of shit for being a Mariners fan. I mean, seriously, what kind of person is a Mariners fan that was born and raised in Wisconsin? I lived in Tacoma for two years and all of a sudden I am a diehard Mariners and Seahawks fan? What’s up with that? I have my reasons. Ideally, I would have never left Seattle and would be buying 20 game season ticket packages to the Mariners instead of the Brewers (although price-wise I can’t complain). I just felt like I clicked with those teams more than I clicked with other teams in the past. The Cubs print money and it wasn’t until I was in my mid 20s that they figured out how to spend it. The Brewers were terrible before Mark A bought them. The White Sox, gross. No team ever gave me a reason to be a fan because locale and really that’s not enough. I need to believe that this team wants to win and I believed that when I first started liking the Mariners (funny how things work out). Now that I like them, I can’t stop liking them. I never had that initial crush on the teams around here. Not until I began my affair with the Brewers this season at least. The thing is I LIKE being a Mariners fan. I don’t want to be anything but. I don’t want any other team to win the World Series as badly as I want them to and if they can’t win the World Series, at least I have a player that looks this good in sunglasses to cheer for.
Sometimes that’s all you need. That’s what I keep telling myself.
I know this is just rumor mongering, but I can’t help myself sometimes.
One source mentioned a potential three-way deal that would send outfielder Hideki Matsui from the New York Yankees to the Seattle Mariners for a pitching prospect, perhaps Ryan Rowland-Smith. The Yankees would package the prospect with second baseman Robinson Cano and another young player to the Rockies for Matt Holliday.
What better way to make the Japanese owner of your team get behind you than by trading for Godzilla? He makes a lot of money, but he’s got talent and just imagine the marketing that could be done overseas with Matsui and Ichiro on the same team. It’d be the biggest thing to hit Japan since Dance Dance Revolution. I don’t really like the idea of giving up RRS unless there is also money or another prospect in the deal, but this is just a crazy rumor anyways. Still, I’d totally buy a poster of Ichiro and Matsui together for my bedroom Nolan’s room.
