Everybody in the states is so relaxed, and everybody in Japan is so uptight.
When you mail Ichiro something from the States, you only have to use that name on the address and he gets it (in Japan). He's that big.
I wanted the challenge of competing against the best players in the world.
Baseball has been the greatest things in my life, but the cameras and the media surrounding baseball have not been fun. It's unnecessary. How many times do they see me stretch? How many times do they see me walk? It is a big concern. If it affected the team in a negative way, I don't know what I would do.
When I look at the records and see where my place in the history of the game (in Japan with Orix) might be, I guess you could say it was a good decision to come here. It's not just me. Maybe I'll have an effect on others in the international part of the game.
