Switching Dugouts

There's been a lot of high profile MLB trade activity this week that is certain to impact the NL and AL playoff races - Hanley Ramirez to the Dodgers, Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante to the Tigers, and Wandy Rodriguez to Pittsburgh included.  With the trading deadline still six days away, we're likely to see another big deal or two before the end of the month.  Regardless of what happens between now and July 31, though, I doubt we'll see any deals more interesting and unusual than the one that sent Ichiro Suzuki from Seattle to the Yankees on Monday afternoon.  With the Yankees already in Seattle to open a three-game series at Safeco Field, Ichiro only had to walk across the infield to join his new teammates.

This isn't the first time this has happened, of course.  From time to time, teams will make trades while playing each other and the impacted players don't have to travel before joining their new teams - they just hand their home whites in for a new set of road greys (or vice versa) and they're good to go.  Nor is this the first time that a local legend like Ichiro was traded away from the team with which he has spent his entire career since his rookie season in 2001.  Whereas a few decades ago the notion of a franchise player like Ichiro being traded mid-season would have been absurd, the new financial realities of baseball and the outfielder's desire to be traded to a competitive team combined to send the Japanese legend to New York in exchange for two prospects.

What's so interesting, though, is the fact that Seattle fans had no opportunity to process the Ichiro trade and its ramifications / meaning before seeing him, up close and personal, in a Yankees uniform.  In addition to his many on-field accomplishments, Ichiro's presence and international appeal make him arguably one of the most important Major League Baseball players of my lifetime.  While he wasn't the first Japanese import to play in the Majors, Ichiro's constant production for Seattle since his rookie season (when he won both the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in helping to lead Seattle to a 116-46 record and an ALCS appearance) has set the standard for Nippon Professional Baseball players (especially position players) migrating to MLB.  He has been the face of not only the Mariners for the past decade, but for Japanese Major Leaguers and MLB's international expansion efforts as well.

So when Ichiro got traded to the Yankees and Mariners fans got to (had to?) see him play against them at Safeco Field that very night, I wondered if the local Seattle fans would be able to fully process and appreciate all that he has meant to their city and baseball as a whole.  While many argue that Ichiro has always been overrated (and, if you believe in the value of OBP over AVG you might have to concede that point), you'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of players that have meant more to their teams and to the game of baseball that Ichiro Suzuki.  Normally, there's a window between a player getting traded and his return to his original team that lets the fans process the player's departure - fans get exited about the player's return, secondary market ticket prices skyrocket and the media flocks to cover the story.  Due to the quirky circumstances of the Ichiro-to-New York deal, however, the newest Yankee might not have gotten the respect he deserves from the Mariners faithful.

Was Ichiro's standing ovation at Safeco Field anything more than routine?