The following interview is completely fabricated and never actually happened. Thank God.

Mudede: So, Ichiro, what is baseball about? Is it a classic struggle of men against rationality, a gladiatoral exhibition of cannonball pugilism among sticks and horsehide? Is it a descent into the seventh level of existential hell?

Ichiro: Baseball is a chess match. Think of the pitcher as a hard-throwing Bobby Fischer, the batter as Kasparov, the umpire his clock timer, the ball his next move. The bases are your squares, and the bat your queen. The goal in swinging your bat is to put your opponent in check. The outfielders are bishops, the throws like diagonal slices across the board, the middle infielders the rooks, moving laterally and charging to and from.

Mudede: But does this not put faith in draconian systems of thinking and enable one to free his mind, to maximize one’s being? Men are made millionaires from a game where you throw a leather ball and hit it with a stick. Have you abandoned your purpose in life by turning your back on the burdens of the world to play a child’s game?

Ichiro: The game of a child can also reap the rewards of adulthood. The nuances of a child’s game teaches many lessons that aspects of adulthood cannot.

Mudede: But it is not adulthood! It is still a child’s game played in a steep and concrete monolithic palace, with seats for the middle-class masses to watch the travails of grown children as if they were gladiators! A palace built on the fruits of man’s labor that serves no other purpose!

Ichiro: One need not live the life of convention to self actualize, and a batter is not a gladiator. The batter is a samurai, the pitcher like an American cowboy, holding the handle of his pistol, ready to fire like a gunslinger. The ball is his bullet, the bat of the batter his sword, and he needs to swing quickly and accurately for two strikes lest he hari-kari himself with strike three.

Mudede: I feel as if I’m speaking to a brick wall! The oppression of poverty tortures the transients that sleep in the gutters of SODO not one block from where you play this child’s game!

Ichiro: They are the fallen, those who did not find the focus to find their purpose in life. For flowers to grow, your roots must be free of weeds. The weeds of society are uprooted and left for dead out of the grass of growth.

Mudede: Are you a nihilist?

Ichiro: I am the center fielder for the Seattle Mariners.

Mudede: You are a grown child making more money than a hundred men to play a child’s game!

Ichiro: You will need to discuss the terms of my contract with my agent.

Mudede: A sports agent! An instrument of a polarized aristocracy! A man who destroys the equity of the world’s economics in order to fund the excessive lifestyles of men who play a child’s game!

Ichiro: This is a strange interview. I’m going to need two ice creams after dinner tonight.

Mudede: You, sir, are an instrument of the world’s destruction!

Ichiro: Please go away before I call security.