Ichiro welcomes hecklers, says he's proud to represent Japan at WBC

Monday, March 20, 2006 at 13:40 EST

SAN DIEGO, California — Hey, it's only a game. Bring on the hecklers!

About the only thing that Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro felt about being jeered as the man they loved to hate by Korean-American fans in Japan's games against South Korea in the World Baseball Classic was that the boos weren't loud enough.

Ichiro, who went 3-for-5 with a run-scoring single and extended his hitting streak to seven games in Japan's 6-0 victory over Team Korea in the semifinals, said Sunday that he welcomed the mudslinging and overall bad treatment he received while playing against the Koreans.

"I actually welcome boos as part of the game. I really love to see that from my opponent's fans. Last night, I think that those fans didn't boo hard enough," he said.

Ichiro, the perennially stoic craftsman, has demonstrated intense emotions rarely, if ever, seen while playing in the major leagues — including appearing to blurt out an expletive after Japan's second defeat to Team Korea in the second round.

South Koreans, however, were apparently offended when Ichiro made comments in the first round of pool play to the effect that it would take Taiwan, China and South Korea another 30 years to catch up to Japan's level of play.

"My comments seemed to stir up a lot of things but they are going be interpreted in many ways anyway and I'm fine with that," Ichiro said. "I felt the weight of shouldering the Japanese flag and this primarily brought out my emotions in this tournament."

For now, the Japan-South Korea rivalry is cooling off as Japan has a much bigger fish to fry in the form of Cuba in the final at Petco Park on Monday.

Japan, which improved to a 4-3 record at the Classic, made the semifinals against South Korea by allowing fewer runs than the United States in a tiebreaker. But unlike the U.S. team, Japan has also worked as a well-oiled machine to advance runners and shown its fundamental soundness by looking for gaps to drive in runs.

Perhaps by no surprise Ichiro, along with Texas Rangers right-hander Akinori Otsuka, is the last of the remaining two major league players in the inaugural tournament from the 16 nations that participated.

"I feel very proud to be one of the two major leaguers and of course I sense that MLB is hurting a little bit.

Japan manager Sadaharu Oh said Ichiro's status, among Japanese fans especially, could only improve because of his passionate play during the three-week tournament.

"Ichiro had been perceived in the media to be selfish but through his participation and commitment in this tournament, I think his popularity will only increase with the fans," Oh said.

Asked about what he thought needed changing about major league baseball, Ichiro quipped, "I would say they need to clean up the dugouts a little more because I've experienced so many filthy dugouts in the States. I'd like to suggest that seriously."

Ichiro also said, however, that Japanese players can learn a lot about having passion for baseball from their major league counterparts.

http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/367509

He's at it again with his ph@qin ego
Someone bust a cap in him

They were taught in a way to never apologize

Who cares. Japanese aren't known for their athleticism. Just look at theire puny performance in the Olympics.'

WBC isn't exactly the Olympics.

It's only baseball. it's good to watch it if you want to fall asleep.

sure it didnt bother him. barking back at crowd proves it. he probably meant, "it's alright! i love the attention..just letting you guys know!!"

Japanese have nothing to be proud of in sports considering their puny @$$, shameful performance in the Torino Olympics.

lol because they were expecting soooo much anyway

LOL

Combining Korea's excellent performance in the Olympics, as well as their advancement in the WBC, Koreans are really making a name for themselves in sports.

Their olympic success was nothing new, it was expected

I think Koreans are just naturally better athletes. Hence, they do consistently well in sports unlike the Japanese who has to rely on sheer luck.

lol sure they are
Yes the figure skating gold was sheer luck wasnt it, yes of course

LOL yeah I guess that was kinda harsh.

1 Gold medal versus Korea's 6 plus their 5 other medals? Anyways Japan never thought that they would win the skating gold. In fact, the skater was planning to retire and not even compete in Torino. Thus sheer luck that they even managed to carry off 1 gold!

Also considering in the 2004 olympics Japan won more medals than Korea

How about the other years? As far as I know Japan never won more than 10 medals in the winter Olympics. Korea beat that record with 11 & Korea's less than half the population of Japan. Thus, it seems to me Koreans are naturally better athletes. Japanese just have to try harder.

lol hardly.
The Japanese are better in the normal olympics, the Koreans are better in the winter olympics, its stupid to assume that overall one is better than the other when they're blatantly not.

Regardless, Koreans are really making a name for themselves in sports considering they are 48 million compared to 128? million Japanese.

Didnt say they werent. Their success in the Winter Olympics was expected.

What do you mean? I've heard that Koreans were only expectly to win 3 gold in Torino, but they carried off 6.

Ah you mean by media and such like, yeah we only had 3 favourites I think. I mean by general people, most people I talked to were expecting us to win most of the speed skating medals. I remember one of the interviews in the UK with some other athlete mentioning about how the Koreans always find some way to screw it up and I was thinking you are so going to regret saying that

i resent that.

Stop making us Koreans look like sore losers.

Hrmm...I don't recall seeing a korean baseball player become rookie of the year and broke the all time hits record in MLB like Ichiro and Hideo Nomo has done.

Never this guy was so cocky.

It's a fair reflection of the entire country's attitude that the coach can actually justify the appalling behaviour of Ichiro and say that the Japanese fans will appreciate how he has behaved through the tournament.

If that is true, then Japanese fans really are jerks.

Some of you sound like such pathetic, sore losers. So Korea lost the baseball game and some of you have to go on your little whiney anti-Japanese diatribes. It's really, really sad that you would even bring the olympics into this, or even try to claim that the Koreans are better athletes overall. This is baseball, who cares how Japan did in the olympics!

You should know that in sports the best team doesn't always win. That's why it's exciting and why it's even worth watching.

um...my question is wtf is japan still doing in the wbc? they lost way more games than korea and they got another chance to play when they were suppose to be eliminated? is that possible? then that automatically means korea should be brought in back in the game with 3 more chances!! to make it fair. korea played way better than japan and its not fair cuz korea had no losses and japan had 3 losses. and you allow them to play again? when i saw them come back i was like wtf is going on here. plus, why the hell is korea against japan for the 3rd f*ckin time. arent they suppose to be home?

korea should be able to get another chance if japan got one. also ichiro didnt prove anything. they won only one game, korea beat'em two times. so korea's victories didnt count? ichiro didnt prove anything. korea vs japan overall games are 2-1. i dont even think japan's victory should even count cuz they shouldnt even have been there in the first place.

but yea that kinda pissed me off. it was not a fair game the wbc format was messed up. to me i still see korea as the champion judging from the overall record from all the other teams. ichiro has nothing to brag about. he's just a arrogant national bastard. "oh yea we beat korea only once, oh yea were better, and we lost a whole lot of games, yeah were better than korea, its gona take 30 years to be like us." if he didnt talk like a little f@g, i wouldve been ok about japan's victory and that they got given another chance to come in.

but f*ck it, korea was way way way way better than japan in wbc seriously and world cup is next .

gangi you sound miserable, you should go get a massage at your local parlor.

all you ichiro-haters needs to stfu! 2 ....the guy is a legend.....at last he's going to win a ring ..which is better than nothing since the mariners are going to win fuk all ....if ichiro was a yankee....he would had 5 rings now ..

Korea had no errors in the whole tournament
Japan have 4 errors

Korea did better than Japan
We will advance to Round 16 at least and Japan wont in the World Cup 2
Brazil will own them hard

He'd still be a jackass.

b!tchiro is just a plain hot-tempered poor-sport crybaby.

I doubt he would be shrugging off the boos and criticism from the Corean fans had Japan lost to Corea in Saturday's game. b!tchiro should be thanking God aloud that Japan got a SECOND CHANCE to defeat Corea.

In real life, you don't get SECOND CHANCES. For example, if you f--k up on an exam, your professor won't let your re-take it. In the NCAA March Madness, once you lose a game, you're out of the tournament for good!

WBC format is a complete joke!

On the other hand, it was funny watching a Corean player beam a baseball at b!tchiro after Saturday's game. This was not the accident Byung Hyun pitch to the Japanese batter.

Plus b!tchiro is damn fugly!!

He needs a $10,000 derma-brasion surgery done on his face. Plus a gallon of Botox would make his skin shinier.

Then straigthen those ugly demon looking teeth of his. 2

Actually Japan wasn't eliminated from that game when they lost to Korea. They were in a 3 way tie with Mexico and USA but they had the lowest ERA so they advanced.

Loser. No surprise, considering you're probably from the gutter. You were the one who started that weirdo thread about the Korean girl who met the guy on the internet and then was raped 4 times? Whatever turns you on.

So why can't I bring up the olympics? When Japan won only 1 medal in the Olympics, you didn't see any Koreans rubbing the loss in the Japanese faces.

In any case WBC is small beans compared to the Olympics, and the Japanese performances in it was shameful to say the least. If they win WBC, it doesn't erase their lousy Olympics performance.

yeah, ichiro conducted himself badly...i mean wth. comparing olympic medals with Japan...but you dont hear any of the other east asian athletes saying japan will take 100 years to catch up...or win medals at all... he takes the one thing they are good at, and ruins it by boasting and making such a foul deal out of everything. BAD MAN!!!

^Ditto; Japanese aren't good at anything except baseball.

dude ..why u hating on ichiro?...i am chinese.....ichiro is the only reason i got into baseball in the first place....it doesn't matter if he's japanese or korean.....all i see is an asian dude....playing in the majors and doing fuking well too....if u understand japanese at all .....ichiro didn't say those things......what he said was he hope to beat teams ..he didn't single out korea.....so bad that they wouldn't want to play japan for 30 years....man...i fuking hate the american press....they always make asians look bad.....

Some japanese guy said
"Americans created baseball, the Japanese perfected it"
-_-

Ichiro is a "great" baseball player but a little cocky human trash.

Good for him to be a good hitter and a player,but his simply JUST THAT.

Me being a korean person i really think Ichiro and Japan is a great team/player.

BUT Koreans have manner at least which makes them look alot better even with a lose.

Sounds like I found the real "plain hot-tempered poor-sport crybabies". Let's see what was said by Korean posters.


"On the other hand, it was funny watching a Corean player beam a baseball at b!tchiro after Saturday's game. This was not the accident Byung Hyun pitch to the Japanese batter."
Looks like this poster endorses such poor sportsman ship. Quite sad to hear.

"In real life, you don't get SECOND CHANCES."
That sure sounds like a sure and coky statement---yet it's completely false at the same time.

"WBC format is a complete joke! "
Now this poster attacks the format of the game....so why did Korea even play at all if they feel like that?

"Plus b!tchiro is damn fugly!! He needs a $10,000 derma-brasion surgery done on his face. Plus a gallon of Botox would make his skin shinier. Then straigthen those ugly demon looking teeth of his. 2"
The levels of sadness gets rather low at this point, let's move on.

"Japanese aren't good at anything except baseball."
Nice to know who the real racists are.

lol sure..........thats why in 2004 we were ranked 5th for Olympic medals 2
Idiots

What's being done is already done so stop whining and get over it. Lets wait for the next WBC and start all this drama again

With the way people have been going on here, you'd least expect "manners" to be associated with Koreans 2

Requesting thread to be closed

requesting musashino to be warned for racist remark

lol yes, what happened this time? hmmmmm?

lets see, China and Korea had 11 medals (EACH btw), 6 golds for Korea.

Japan hassss, (drum roll please) ONE! woooo, sure it was gold, gj. its still one though.

-_-? what are you talking about? YOU're the one that has no "manners" by badmouthing us? i hate all this generalizing 'koreans' and 'japanese' you people are doing omg..



lol from figure skating.... too bad that one korean figure skater couldn't make it to torino cuz of her young age... she beat that japanese gold medallist not too long ago lmao =_=

korea won ALL their medals from speed skating... =/ so i dunno, that kind of statistics only tell me we're only good at one sport in the winter olympics -_-

"lol sure they are "

so are you passively saying you guys are better than us by replying like that then? how do you know this? this kinda makes me think you're one of those japanese people that think koreans are inferior - _-
i see lots of peeps keep saying stuff about our 'nationalistic pride' bs or w/e, but you guys are just as good at being proud of your country..

all you could've said was, 'but we own you in most aspects of technology'. <-- clean.. i'd take that =/ not sure about other people =]

sorry, i've just seen a bunch of your comments in both the korean/japanese forum and something kept bugging me from THE WAY you wrote them, they were all kinda like 'ohh yeah uh huh.. suuurree...... that's why we're like this and that..... yep uh huh. w/e'

No, she didn't beat the Japanese olympic gold medalist. she beat another young Japanese figure skater who couldn't go to the olympics because of her age.

oh my bad

I didnt say that. Thats a stupid assumption, thats like if someone said Japanese are more perverted than Koreans and I say 'sure they are' you automatically would assume I meant Koreans are worse which isnt what I said at all, LEARN TO READ.

It'd be rather idiotic of me to think Koreans are inferior considering my father and my gf are Korean and I go there pretty much every year

I always point out bad things about both Koreans and Japanese, just because I'm half of each doesnt mean I'm going to stick my head in the sand. I generally point out slightly less about Japanese on AF because there are more anti-Japanese wankers who start making stupid comments about things they know nothing about.


People need to learn to read on here.

I was talking about the normal Olympics, not the Winter Olympics, which you'd know had you bothered to read the posts after that one instead of seeing that and making your dumb comment