It’s very subtle, and unless you spent some time in the Pacific Northwest watching Seattle Mariners baseball, you may not get it.

But this 2011 Elite Extra Edition Ichiro card really is an homage to some of the funniest commercials in baseball.

The card, pictured to the right, features Ichiro in an interesting pose.  We usually see players in action on baseball cards, but with Panini, things aren’t that way.  Because Panini isn’t allowed to use MLB logos, the company use different kinds of poses to shield logos.

On this Ichiro card we get him looking over his shoulder, and it instantly reminded me of the Mariners commercials starring Ichiro.

Check these out:

“Ichiro Shift”

“Epidemic”

“The Wizard”

But perhaps my favorite one is this one, which I could only find on some random Website.

“Just a bit outside.”

Classic.

This entry was posted on March 20, 2012 at 6:35 am and is filed under Newspaperman with tags baseball, baseball cards, Commercial, Ichiro, Majoe League Baseball, Panini America, Seattle Mariners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.