The below post contains important Dr. Naka translations from Ichiro's original Japanese. (This webpage is referenced in the Wikipedia entry on Ichiro.  Footnote 4.)

You will probably also enjoy Dr. Naka's translations and commentary on Ichiro's offseason "anti-Hargrove" interview.  Here is part 1.   Parts 2 and 3 can be found in the sidebar, under VIDEO & MEDIA.  

There is also interesting and unique Ichiro material in the sidebar when you click the red, white and blue profile of Ichiro hitting.

Finally, we invite you to browse our library of Players of the Day (POTD's) which contain our info-taining analysis of many pro baseball players that are of interest in Seattle and Japan.

Enjoy Dr. Naka's article below. — Jeff a/k/a Dr. Detecto 

 

I wasn't planning to post again today, but this Seattle PI article is making it so I have to sit at the keyboard again.

The offending quote?

"I want to beat South Korea so badly," Ichiro said, "that the South Koreans won't want to play Japan for another 30 years."

The problem is… Ichiro never said this!

「アジアラウンド（１次リーグ）では向こう３０年、日本に勝てないと思わせるぐらいやっつけたい。ファンのみなさんは、いくらでも期待してください」

Sanspo

「戦った相手が『向こう３０年は日本に手は出せないな』という感じで勝ちたいと思う」

Sponichi

Both of these quotes roughly translate to…

"I want to beat the teams in the Asia Round in so they think they won't win for another 30 years. Fans, you will see the best team in Asia."

And…

"I would like to win in ways to make our opponents think, 'we got 30 years before we catch up to Japan'."

Notice that neither quote specifically mentions a country and were made on February 22nd, way in advance of any of the games.

It is my belief that the odd translations actually originated from Korean Papers. This Dong-A Ilbo article is the first non-Japanese version of the quote I've seen…

Ichiro said, "not only will we win, but also we'll make Japanese baseball fans feel that they saw a truly great game. I want to make [Korea and Taiwan] see that they will not be able to beat Japan in next 30 years."

Notice the MLA style reinterpretations of what Ichiro originally said in the block parenthesis.

Though I can't really say Ichiro was being smart saying these things and the spirit does remain the same, this was more like A-Rod saying the AL East has no chance this season than Ichiro saying Koreans are kim'chee eating devils from the nether-world.

 

So don't go and rip on Ichiro.

It's not his fault he's mistranslated all the time.