History Re-Imagined

As one gets older, one interesting thing that starts to happen is you see historic re-tellings of events you actually lived through (and were following at the time). I mean, if I see a History Channel documentary on the Watergate scandal (when I was not yet born), I typically assume they are giving fair and accurate breakdown of events. On the other hand, if I watch a movie like About a Son, a documentary on Kurt Cobain, I have the hyperbole/bullshit radar on high alert.

This weekend I was watching The Tenth Inning, a film by Ken Burns about baseball in the past 20 years, and this comment struck me as completely inaccurate from my recollection from the time period:

Most scouts doubted that Ichiro with his slender frame and unusual batting stance would be able to handle major league pitching. --- narrator of The Tenth Inning

What?!!? Seattle paid $13.125m in November 2000 for the right to negotiate with Ichiro and then signed him to a three-year deal worth over $14m. Now, yes, there was admittedly some extra financial incentive for Seattle to sign him because of the large Asian community in the Seattle area but, make no mistake, Ichiro was certainly no novelty signing!

Now, did scouts expect him to win MVP as a rookie in 2001 and go on to break the record for consecutive 200+ hit seasons? No, I'm sure they did not. And I do distinctly recall Rob Dibble saying he would get an Ichiro tattoo if Ichiro won a batting title (which he did and he did) - but Rob Dibble is not a scout, let alone "most scouts"... so, Ken Burns, I hate to say it but I Call BS!

In fact, I have located the "smoking gun" for my BS call. Baseball America is without question the leading authority on baseball prospects; here is their Top 100 for the spring of 2001. Hmmm... if most scouts didn't think Ichiro would be able to handle major league pitching, why does Baseball America have him at #9?!?!