In 2001, I remember hearing the buzz, whispers at first, about a guy playing for the Seattle Mariners named Ichiro Suzuki. I was 13 years old, and to be honest? I didn’t care. At least not at first.
As a lifelong Mariners fan, I was still picking up the pieces from the heartbreak of the Ken Griffey Jr. trade the year before. My baseball world had already been shaken. Griffey was the guy. My guy. I stayed loyal to the Mariners, still cheering on the 41-year-old Rickey Henderson and getting behind Mike Cameron in 2000, but my heart was guarded.