Cause I Got A Peaceful Easy Feeling, And I Know You Won't Let Me Down

I was reading an article on ESPN earlier today, and it centered on Ichiro. The author talked about how rooting for a Japanese player, even though he was Korean, helped him feel more assimilated into American culture thanks to the unifying thread of baseball. Well, he didn't say he felt more assimilated because he rejected the term altogether, but the article was about whether he was or wasn't, and whether he could be or couldn't.

Midway through the article, he mentioned the famous laser beam. On a groundball through the right side of the infield, Terrence Long tried to go first to third. This happens all the time, and Long was on the faster side of the speed continuum. This rookie from Japan, who had his first name on the back of his jersey (When your first name is "Ichiro", you can get away with stuff like that. As for Kurt Suzuki, he gets "Suzuki" across the shoulders), fields it cleanly and fires the purest throw you might ever see.

Oh. You say you've never seen it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUD7XRpTpGw

Now you have.

There are a handful of sports clips I can watch over and over again, and each time just sit there grinning like an idiot and half-chuckling because it is so amazing. This one is high on that list. I can not overstate how amazing that throw is. I wish the picture on the internet was clearer, because I remember watching this on Sportscenter for about a week straight, and that crystal clear image is the same one my mind super-imposes on this one. In fact, in my mind, the ball becomes this yellow comet that starts about 14 feet off the ground, and finishes about 4, despite traveling roughly 200 feet laterally.

In my rec-league softball games, people get impressed when I throw from the left side hole to first on a line. That video makes my feat seem childish. For that matter, that video makes me feel child-like. I just giggle at it thinking, "My goodness. How is that even possible?" I know that it is, but I just can't believe it.

It's like watching the Pujols home run off Brad Lidge (http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/ps/y2005/video.jsp?view=hou_stl, Scroll towards the bottom and you'll find the link for it. If I post the link straight, it doesn't turn out well.) from the 2005 NLCS. I can tell you exactly where I was when that happened. I can tell you who was in the room, what furniture was there, where I stood (definitely wasn't sitting for this) and where the others were standing in respect to me. I could probably even tell you the approximate number of inches each of us had our mouths open, grinning as we watched that ball rise and rise and rise. For the record, I still don't believe it has landed. Just like I believe that if the third baseman hadn't caught Ichiro's throw, it would have sailed over the wall and four rows deep into the stands, another 60-70 feet beyond.

These are the giggly moments. The ones where you forget you're an adult and that there are things like rent, or bills, or payments to be made. Where you let go of the sensibility that says, "Grown men don't giggle, or stare slack-jawed at a video they've seen a dozen+ times". Where you close your eyes, and could swear you went back in time to those moments.

Those are the two that always come to mind first for me. There are others, such as "The Jeter Flip" and "Ken Griffey Jr's Home Run Swing", but those two are the most impressive. Take a couple minutes, enjoy the clips, and feel a little younger again.

Word.