One of the inspirations of this blog entry is to translate directly Japanese news stories from Japanese to English. It is often interesting and enlightening to get the Japanese perspective. After reading an American paper’s account of Ichiro breaking the record and realizing there was no interviews with the man, it became necessary to write about what Ichiro himself said about his record breaking achievement.

Asahi (I was hitting “for dear life”) When Asahi asked Ichiro what it was like up at bat during the seventh inning, when the record could be broken, he exclaimed, “I had no time to think about what was actually going on, or that this was a special moment. It was like I was hitting for dear life.” Asahi then asked, “Can you explain what you mean by “dear life””? Ichiro replied, “Well basically I wanted to take advantage of the moment that my team was doing well. I wanted to add to the flow of the game.”

Asahi also asked if he felt good after playing the game. Ichiro replied “Well I actually had a bad feeling. It was that the current record holder would get upset, hearing cheers after the record was broken.”

Yomiuri (“Not bad at all.”) Ichiro’s feelings while he was at bat, according to Yomiuri, “I was thinking, not bad at all. I should take advantage of the flow of my team. Although I say take advantage, I don’t mean just the act of “taking”, but I think I was more wrapped up in the feeling of the moment.”

Nikkei (“I’ve surpassed the current record holder”) The Nikkei focused on the actual act of breaking the record. Ichiro in the seventh inning left a mark by getting the 3,085 hit of his career. It also went on to explain that Ichiro had stomach pains and was out for eight games last season, and he seems to have recovered well this season. Ichiro exclaimed “I’ve now passed the current record holder.”