ACTUALLY...

Ichiro has his own reasons for why he continues to use a translator in media interviews. In a 2011 interview, via a translator, of course, he told John Hickey of Sportspress Northwest: “We have to connect to our fans through the media, and when you talk about that, it's got to come from your heart. And when it comes from your heart, it has to be absolutely consistent. There’s a big risk you take without an interpreter, because as professional baseball players, we are here to perform baseball, not to learn a language.”

The only thing Ichiro respects more than the English language are his baseball bats, which he is known to carry around in a shockproof, moisture-free black case. Ichiro's bats are almost certainly not corked.

Even with his preference to conduct interviews in Japanese, Ichiro has a perfect grasp of American culture to the point that it informs a wicked and understated sense of humor. He once said of Cleveland: "To tell the truth, I'm not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to. If I ever saw myself saying I'm excited going to Cleveland, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'm lying." (Joakim Noah would be proud.)

When asked recently about Pete Rose’s thoughts on Ichiro’s chase for the all-time hits record, Ichiro observed: “In the 16 years that I have been here, what I've noticed is that in America, when people feel like a person is below them, not just in numbers but in general, they will kind of talk you up. But then when you get up to the same level or maybe even higher, they get in attack mode; they are maybe not as supportive. I kind of felt that this time.”

There’s also the time Bob Costas asked Ichiro about his favorite American expression:

IN CONCLUSION…

Ichiro has in fact learned to speak English during his time in Major League Baseball, and speaks it very well. In the meantime he’s also learned Spanish and taught his teammates Japanese. He doesn’t conduct interviews in English because he respects language differences and doesn’t want to cause any confusion. Also: this is further proof we need to separate users on Twitter into Rookie, Pro, All-Pro, and All-Madden divisions.

Grisham issued an “apology” several “hours” after his original tweet:

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