Ichiro vs. The #42

In honor of the great Jackie Robinson and his contributions to baseball, the MLB designated April 15th as Jackie Robinson day. To celebrate this day, every baseball player across the league wore jerseys with Jackie Robinson's #42 on them. It was a fitting symbol of unity paying tribute to Jackie Robinson's pivotal role in breaking the color barrier for African Americans in baseball when he broke into the league 61 years ago for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I wonder if someday, major leaguers will wear Ichiro Suzuki's number for a day of celebrating his contributions to the sport. Not only is he a future hall-of-famer in American baseball, but his success in the big leagues has helped pave the way for Japanese baseball players. He wasn't the first Japanese baseball player in the major leagues, but he is arguably one of the most successful. In fact, his numbers certainly make him one of the top baseball players of all time. His accomplishments have made him an instantly recognizable icon and a legend in Japan. He has a career .331 batting average since entering the league in 2001 and has remained a Seattle Mariner for his entire career. He has certainly done a lot in his brief career, but wearing Jackie Robinson's number 42 on Jackie Robinson day recently, had to be one of his bigger challenges.

See, the irony of the number 42 is that it comes with a bit of stigma to the Japanese culture. In the same way we are taught to think of 13 as unlucky, or 666 as evil, the number 42 has a negative stigma as well. I had heard that the number 4 carried a stigma with it. In Japanese 4 can be pronounced "shi", which is also how the word for death, "shinu", starts. So, the number 4 signifies death. We noticed the extent to this stigma when we first stayed in our hotel on our preview trip. The number 4 did not appear on the list of buttons in the elevator. I hadn't know about the number 42, though. Apparently 42 can be taken to mean "dead people". You see, 2 is pronounced, "ni" in Japanese, which is similar to the counter for people, pronounced, "nin". So, 42 in Japanese can be seen as "shi nin", or "dead people." Quite a stigma, huh?

So how did Ichiro fare wearing such a terrible number during his game on Jackie Robinson Day? He met the challenge with a 2 hit, 4 RBI night. One of those hits was a grand slam! So much for a negative stigma.