"Baseball Is Just Baseball": The Understated Ichiro: An Unauthorized Collection Compiled by David Shields

Ichiro Suzuki, the rookie All-Star right fielder for the Seattle Mariners, has the sports world transfixed. Author David Shields was at first entranced by Ichiro's smart, subtle play--just what the Mariners and Seattle needed. Then he was entranced by what Ichiro said--his smart, subtle words. The result is Baseball Is Just Baseball: The Understated Ichiro, a 120-page quote book of Ichiro in his own words. This selection of quotations takes the reader from Ichiro's decision to play for the Mariners to spring training to the regular season and up to the All-Star Break. It's a fan's book, a wisdom book, life-lessons for kids, for baseball fans, and for wisdom-seekers alike. Shields says that "Ichiro seems to me to 'get' life, to be in the groove, be in the moment, to have the secret. He mixes Zen distance with Zen focus. According to the Chinese aphorism, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'; Ichiro is very good at focusing on each step."
Experience reality rather than your expectation of reality. Believe in yourself. Don't take yourself seriously but find an activity to be passionate about and take that activity very seriously. Don't buy the hype. Dissolve hate into love. Care more about the process than the product. Find joy in the seeking itself. Such are some of the simple but profound, powerful ideas embodied in this prize of a little book--a document of not only a popular athlete but an impressive human being. In just the first half of his rookie year in the majors, Ichiro has fully captured the imagination of fans in Seattle, Japan, and everywhere. We've certainly not seen the end of his great run; as Ichiro himself said: "I'm planning to turn on the power after the All-Star break."

David Shields is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty books, including Reality Hunger (recently named one of the 100 most important books of the last decade by LitHub), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Other People: Takes & Mistakes (NYTBR Editors' Choice). The Very Last Interview was published by New York Review Books in 2022.

Shields has published fiction and nonfiction in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Yale Review, Salon, A Public Space, Believer, and Best American Essays. His work has been translated into two dozen languages.

James Franco's film adaptation of I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel, which Shields co-wrote and co-stars in, was released in 2017. Shields wrote, produced, and directed Lynch: A History, a 2019 documentary about Marshawn Lynch's use of silence, echo, and mimicry as key tools of resistance.