Ichiro Teaches Art Of Base Stealing In Japanese Instructional Video

by Dan Fogarty | 6:38 pm, September 7th, 2010

Here’s a somewhat-old video of Ichiro teaching a Japanese reporter his base-stealing secrets. A number of things make this video cool, not the least of which is the utter Japaneseness of its presentation.

Like some sort of samurai Ricky Henderson, Ichiro, who is mysteriously wearing a Seahawks jersey throughout the video, schools the reporter (who “oohs” and “ahhs” upon learning Ichiro’s most important strategy) on how to take a bag.

Things we learn: not to take too big of a lead, lest you concentrate more on “getting back than taking off,” to draw an imaginary line to 2nd base in your mind, and, above all else, steal bases the Ichi-way.