Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Looking into All-Star crystal ball
By Mike Lopresti
Gannett News Service
SEATTLE — Timetables here. Get your All-Star timetables. Or else how will you know what Ichiro Suzuki is scheduled to do, and when he will do it?
Anyway, an itinerary is always helpful for the All-Star Game, which is less a contest and more a collection of moments.
Especially this year. Cal Ripken says goodbye, Suzuki says hello. There are Seattle Mariners out the wazoo. Roger Clemens gets to share airspace with old chum Mike Piazza. It goes on and on.
So here it is for tonight. Times approximate.
• 8:30 p.m.: First pitch. Clemens against Luis Gonzalez, the Arizona Diamondback with 35 home runs, a growing figure in Barry Bonds' rearview mirror.
• 8:50 p.m.: The Ichiro Suzuki Coming Out Party will officially begin, during lunch hour Wednesday in Tokyo. Suzuki will be leading off the American League first inning against Curt Schilling.
He has 134 hits, a .347 average. Rookies are not supposed to do this. Especially Japanese rookies.
“One of the things a veteran pitcher told me a long time ago is that as an opposing pitcher, you have the ability to shut up a stadium. I have the ability to shut up a country for a few minutes.”
Suzuki was queried Monday about his strategy by the restless media masses who surrounded him — 37 microphones, 17 cameras, two security men and a translator who kept insisting Japanese and American media take turns asking questions,
“My plan is to see a pitch I can handle,” Suzuki said. “And then hit it hard.”
Oh.
• 8:52 p.m.: Former Mariner Alex Rodriguez will bat as a Texas Ranger, $252 million to the good, but 28 games behind Seattle in the standings.
No report on whether the customers plan to boo or giggle.
• 8:54 p.m.: Another Mariner at the plate. Bret Boone, a 5-10 second baseman, hits cleanup in an All-Star Game. This is one magical year in Seattle.
• 9:02 p.m.: Clemens vs. Piazza. The man he hit last summer, fired a broken bat toward in the World Series. Real pals.
“I've faced Mike lots of times,” Clemens shrugged Monday, suggesting no big deal.
“Sometimes,” Piazza said, “you have to turn the page and go forward.”
• 9:15 p.m.: Ripken will step in for his 19th and last All-Star Game. The roar will carry to Tacoma.
• 9:20 p.m.: Ichiro will bat again. In Japan, all commerce will stop.
“I don't think there's one player in baseball who doesn't pick up the paper or look at ESPN and see how he's doing,” Gonzalez said. “He makes it look kind of easy. And it's really not that easy.”
• 10:30 p.m.: Mike Hampton, the Colorado pitcher with six home runs, will relieve. By then, he will have managed to get over the fact one invited him to the home run contest.
• 11:20 p.m.: Torre will put in the eighth Mariner, the most for any team in 40 years. Kazuhiro Sasaki will close out the National League for the fifth straight American win.
Game will end. Might as well. No more Mariners to put in. The TV battalions will crowd around Ichiro Suzuki's locker.
English, then Japanese, the translator will say.
Complete All-Star coverage from Associated Press
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Looking into All-Star crystal ball