Ichiro Suzuki by David Aretha

Author:David Aretha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC

In Japan in 2002, a Pepsi advertisement featured a picture of Ichiro swinging a bat next to the words “Change the World.” This relentless hitter was doing just that. With his spectacular 2001 season, Ichiro had turned Japanese baseball on its head. Attendance for his former team, the Orix BlueWave, plummeted 17 percent in 2001. Where did the fans go? To their television sets. TV viewership of MLB games tripled in Japan that year.

Many Japanese even flew to Seattle to watch Ichiro play. Michael Kurtz, of the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau, noted that prior to 2001, about 105,000 to 110,000 Japanese citizens visited the state each year. For 2002, he predicted the number to surge to 150,000. “The Japanese like to go to famous places— the famous mountain is in Banff, Canada, the famous beach in Hawaii,” said Don Lorentz, director of trade and development for the Port of Seattle. “We’ve always struggled to find that one thing. Now we have a great baseball player.”1

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