Ichiro Continues To Lose It A Bit

Ichiro Suzuki has been acting more erratically the last few years, we've noticed, coinciding almost directly with the Mariners' struggles the last few years. But in an interview Monday, Ichiro might have lost it a little while discussing the team's difficulties.

"If there is a problem, we need to notice what creates the problem. The problem usually isn't just on the cover. You need to look much deeper. For example, if we're talking about a tree and the tree has a problem, you need to look at the root. But you cannot see the root. The mistake is to keep watering the fruit. That's not going to solve anything."

This doesn't appear to be a translation issue, but rather some curious philosophizing on Ichiro's part. We really tried to follow it, but we got kind of confused around the "look deeper into a tree to see if you should water the fruit" section. Which part is the root again?

Ichiro The Philosopher [Seattlest]