Ichiro vs. Kenny Powers

In 2006, Ichiro played for the Seattle Mariners, and Kenny played for "Seattle." How do they compare?

Height
Ichiro: 5'9"
Kenny: 5'8"

Weight
Ichiro: 160
Kenny: 210

Home
Ichiro: Kasugai, Japan
Kenny: Shelby County, North Carolina

Strengths
Ichiro: An excellent contact hitter, a speedy baserunner, and a nine-time Gold Glove winner
Kenny: An arm like a damn rocket, a cock like a Burmese python, and the mind of a fucking scientist

Favorite Bar
Ichiro: Saito’s Japanese Café & Bar
Kenny: Shh-Boom Shh-Booms

Hobbies
Ichiro: Collecting paintings, shopping for antique furniture, driving his Porsche, coin collecting, playing Go, playing golf, growing bonsai trees
Kenny: Getting drunk on the reg, fuckin' good times on the reg, yachts on the reg, sex on the reg, riding the Panty-Dropper (his Jet-Ski), cocaine

Memorable Quote
Ichiro: "August in Kansas City is hotter than two rats in a fucking wool sock."
Kenny: "I’m the man with the ball. I’m the man who can throw it faster than fuck. So that is why I’m better than everyone else in the world. Kiss my ass and suck my dick, everyone."

On Fashion
Ichiro: "The fashion sense Americans have is a crime."
Kenny (to girlfriend): "I know one of us has had their own personal stylist, and the other shoplifts their shit from Fashion Bug... You got clothes like a fuckin' dickhead."

On Seattle
Ichiro: "You can see water everywhere you go, which is very unique for an urban area in the States."
Kenny: "You should see my fuckin' cookouts, man. When I was back in Seattle, I had the goddamn Spoonman from the Soundgarden videos comin' to my shit. Oh yeah, I’m talkin' six grills burnin' at all times, tiki torches, three whole pigs, fuckin' shitloads of macaroni and cheeses, baked potatoes, collard greens, a horse, fuckin' Puerto Rican chicks showin' their pussies and tits off everywhere. They were amazing!"

UPDATE

Kenny: "Seattle can tongue-kiss my shithole."
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Way To Go, Ichiro!

Ichiro just reached 200 hits for the tenth consecutive season!

That's now the American League record for 200-hit seasons, and it ties Pete Rose for the Major League record. Most incredibly, it took Rose 17 seasons to reach the mark (he was 37 at the time); 36-year-old Ichiro's done it in ten.

Amazeballs!
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Way To Go, Rhubarb!

Tacoma's favorite pie ingredient-named caribou mascotted the Rainiers to their second PCL title last week. Soon after, he was seen looting area businesses and setting cop cars on fire before passing out behind Frisko Freeze.

Sadly, the Rainiers lost last night's Triple-A championship game to Columbus, 12-6.

In any case, I'm eager to visit the remodeled Cheney Stadium next season.

Naked Rhubarb photo found at Section 331, taken when Rainiers won their division title last year.
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Bigfoot Monster Robot Toy

Spotted last night at the Northgate Target, this big endcap display featuring the new Fisher-Price® Bigfoot Monster. Here's someone else's video showing him in action.

This 21st century Furby can "say or do over 80 things" -- yelling, farting, somersaults, etc. With its $90 price tag, that's just over a dollar per, um, thing. Too steep for my blood, so don't look for him in my Bigfoot menagerie anytime soon. Besides, I'd rather have one of these:


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From Today's Ballgame...

Saw the M's edge the Rangers, 2-1.

Doppler was there too, fully clad in a basketball uniform.
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Way To Go, Doppler!

Is that a WNBA championship trophy in your diaper, or are you just glad to see us?

Seattle's favorite anemometer-topped hairball mascotted the Storm to their second WNBA title last night. Soon after, he was seen looting area businesses and setting cop cars on fire before passing out behind Dick's.

Here he is in more modest attire, posing with Eliza at some function last year.First photo from the P-I; second photo by Barbie Hull.
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At Long Last, I'm Seeing This Tonight!

In the theater, even!

Though it comes out on DVD next month. More here.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Nic Knievel

Evel's younger brother (and Robbie's uncle) died on Sunday in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho at age 70. Nic didn't seem too interested in talking publicly about Evel, declining most interview requests (including mine), though he did appear on the Evel episode of the E! True Hollywood Story in 1998.

Curiously, Nic's brief daredevil career does not appear in his Montana Standard obit. So, from Evel Incarnate...

Nic raced cars in the ‘60s before becoming an auto dealer in Eugene, Oregon, where he and his wife Rusty raised four children. In a possible case of sibling rivalry (or evidence that risk-taking really is genetic), Nic sold the dealership in 1977 and began attempting ramp-to-ramp jumps in a car. Evel and Nic’s father Robert Knievel built a “Mini Indy” racecar around a snowmobile engine for Nic to use for jumps. Like Evel, Nic was articulate and wore a similar stars-and-stripes costume, but he lacked Evel’s stage presence... Nic’s first scheduled performance, an attempt of 112 feet, was to take place in Yakima in September 1977. In a shorter practice jump a few days earlier, he flew twenty feet beyond his landing ramp, came down sideways on two wheels, and fractured three vertebrae. In July 1978, he came back with a 110-foot leap in Redding, California, followed the next month by a jump of 113 feet at the Eugene Speedway. Nic then claimed the world record, saying he bettered Joie Chitwood’s car-jump mark by two feet. He then planned to ride across the US on a motorized skateboard and make a world record boat jump, though neither stunt ever happened.

The images were scanned from crappy photocopies in my files.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Portland Beavers (Part 2)

The Beavs went out in style yesterday, beating Las Vegas 6-5 in a close, exciting game, played on a sunny afternoon before a sellout crowd of 15,639. Eliza took the above photo from our seats.

I hoped to get a cap or a program, but pretty much all the souvenirs were sold out. I settled for a pack of Beavers baseball cards and a pocket schedule.

After the game, Lucky autographed my scorecard:

As we headed out of the park, I exchanged waves with Rich Burk, and we listened to his post-game show on the drive home. He gave a lengthly, touching, funny reminiscence about his 16 years of broadcasting Portland baseball (man, I wish I heard the game when he spoonerized "Cust bunts"). Wherever this guy gets his next baseball broadcasting job -- let's hope it's in the big leagues -- I'll be listening.

A final photo-op outside the ballpark...

Lots more Oregonian coverage, including this cool time-lapse video...



And another...


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We Hardly Knew Ye: Portland Beavers

Portland is the nation's largest metro area without major league baseball -- larger than even the majors' Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City and Milwaukee -- but after tomorrow's Beavers game is in the books, it'll be the largest metro area without any pro ball. In fact, since the Beavers' PGE Park will soon be remodeled to suit the Major League Soccer Timbers (beginning play there next year), Portland won't even have a baseball venue larger than a college field.

The Beavers name has been used by multiple Portland minor-league franchises in all but 14 of 105 seasons since 1906, with stars such as Satchel Paige, Luis Tiant, and Lou Piniella (above) wearing the Beavers uniform. The team moved into PGE Park (then called Multnomah Stadium) in 1956; the current Triple-A Beavers have been in PDX since 2001. Then, last year, Portland was awarded an MLS expansion franchise to begin play next year. The city council agreed to remodel PGE Park as a soccer/football-only venue on the condition that a new Beavers ballpark be built by next season. But the Beavs were unable to find a spot for a new facility, and the city dropped said condition, leaving the team high and dry. They'll most likely move to the San Diego area, near their parent Padres.

Since the news broke in July, there's been lotsa finger-pointing -- not just at the city council, but also at the mayor, the owner, NIMBY neighborhoods, preservationists, the media, and the (lack of) fans -- over the inability to secure a new, long-term home for the Portland nine. But the simple truth is that soccer is wildly popular in Portland at the moment, and baseball isn't (and, frankly, hasn't been for a long time). This year, the Beavers sold a measly 150 season tickets, while the Timbers have already sold 7,500 advance season tickets for next year.

There's also been lotsa hollering among Portland sports fans in general about the merits of baseball versus soccer, each accusing the other of having an inferior sport. While I'm not a soccer fan, I have nothing against it, either. I think there's room for both (just apparently not at PGE Park). In any case, we'll be attending our first Seattle Sounders soccer game later this week, just to see what all the fuss is about.

So why do I care about the Beavers? I lived in Portland from 1994 to 1998, when the single-A Rockies played at PGE Park (then called Civic Stadium). Though I didn't go to any games, I got hooked on listening to the fantastic Rich Burk call them on Sunny 910 AM, and I've continued listening to him do the Beavers games online. If I still lived in Portland, I could see myself getting season tickets, especially if a cool new Triple-A ballpark was built in downtown Portland, like ones I've seen in Memphis and Toledo. But that's a long shot. It's weird that Portland seems incapable of supporting baseball, then again, Portland's relative weirdness is what gives it its charm.

Sadly, in the last decade I've only been down to Portland for a couple Beavers games (plus last year's Triple-A All-Star Game), but Eliza and I have tickets to tomorrow's finale -- hopefully we'll get some good pics to post.

In the meantime, check out the great farewell coverage in The Oregonian, including an interview with Rich Burk, a timeline, a photo gallery, and this amazing video. And, as always, there's Wikipedia.
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Ichiro a Go-Go, etc.

It's been too long since I've had anything in print, so I was stoked that today's mail brought the new issue of Zisk, containing my Ichiro a Go-Go article (it's mostly a bunch of factoids culled from my Super Ichiro Crazy! page). I was even more stoked that this picture I snapped at a game in May wound up on the cover!

Besides my stuff, there are an additional 14 pages of Ichiro goodness in the issue, including words by Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey and a comic by Slink Moss, plus stuff about Stephen Strasburg's awesome Nationals debut and Adrian Beltre's bum testicle... Send $3 to Zisk, 147 Route 164, Patterson, NY 12563.

Speaking of Ichiro, here was my view of him Tuesday night:

And speaking of baseball, it's cool that Junior is the cover star of the upcoming DVD Baseball: The Tenth Inning, Ken Burns's follow-up to his epic 1994 Baseball documentary:

That is all.
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