It’s a popular fact that 90% of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong.

[No] Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose was, eg, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys; it is used.

One of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary, and turn the unusual into the usual. Otherwise, human beings, forced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing a stupid grin, saying “WOW” a lot.

Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient, and can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels.

Terry Pratchett

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Since 1989, the city of Seattle has assumed that other cities have baseball heroes like they have. Not so!

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1. Ken Griffey Jr., for ten years, was the single greatest figure in the game — the jersey most often purchased, the player most beloved by little boys whether in Cincinnati or Pittsburgh.

Griffey was The Natural, this generation’s Willie Mays, yet even more so. Karma derailed his career early, but for ten years, he was one of the game’s great legends.

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2. Randy Johnson was this generation’s Sandy Koufax — but for three times as long. The Big Unit, along with Lefty Grove, is one of the two greatest lefthand starters who ever lived.

Notice that Griffey and Johnson were not great players merely: they were saturated in charisma. There has never — ever — been a more interesting or exciting pitcher to watch than Randy Johnson.

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3. Alex Rodriguez was this generation’s Honus Wagner — a player so massively more talented than those around him that we was deemed worth one-quarter of a billion dollars.

Griffey, and ARod, and the Unit, were not simply local heroes. They were #1 overall roto draft picks. And, weirdly, they carried even more personality than they did performance.

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4. Ichiro Suzuki is, in my opinion, one of the 50 greatest position players of all time.

But you don’t need an opinion to write that Ichiro is a #1 vote-getter in the All-Star Game … an MVP … the Jackie Robinson of Japanese baseball … the Elvis Presley of Japanese culture … the one player perfectly matched to diverse Seattle … and the coolest baseball player since Babe Ruth.

Ichiro is what Deion Sanders always dreamed about being. …Whatever you consider Ichiro to be, for certain you consider him to be an international superstar. And a joy to watch play.

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HM. Edgar Martinez is not on a par with the above four players as a figure, as a legend of baseball. …the above four players will be talked about for 100 years or more; Edgar will not.

But Edgar is a Hall Of Famer who …. signed with Seattle, and retired with Seattle 20 years later. …and who, in between, was the city’s classiest and most beloved celebrity ever, along with Steve Largent.

Jay Buhner -- now, there would be an example of a great local hero. But Junior, ARod, Ichiro, and the Big Unit are not examples of great local heroes. They are examples of great all-time baseball legends.

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Since 1989, Seattle (weirdly) has never been without a player it could cherish as the game’s most exciting player. Ichiro's mystique has faded perhaps a bit.

So time for:

5. Felix Hernandez — who was, in his time, the best pitching prospect who ever lived.

Felix was not Doc Gooden. Felix was a figure out of a George Plimpton novel, come to life just as Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped out of a theater screen into the real world in Last Action Hero.

Don't know about you, but I'm ready for Felix to Take His Place in 2009. Let's hope.

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Seattle hasn’t had any parades, but it has certainly seen some wonderful baseball sights.

Happy Holidays,
jemanji