SEATTLE -- Having perfected the no-look shovel pass to the catcher and the old "Tumble Completely Into The Stands While Catching a Foul Popup" routine, Derek Jeter returned to his Fortress of Solitude on Tuesday so he could work on yet another clutch play.

	The always stretching Ichiro Suzuki kicks up a good laugh with teammate Stan Javier in workouts Tuesday.

This one involves flying backward around Earth so fast and so many times that he reverses the planet's orbit and turns back time. He is expected to use this play in the event of an Edgar Martinez game-winning home run.

"You've been to spring training, you've seen it,’’ Yankees manager Joe Torre will tell reporters afterward. "It's just something he works on in case we miss a cutoff man or something."

So expect another big series from Jeter today when the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners begins. Jeter has played five seasons and already has four world championship rings and 87 postseason hits. Due to the delayed postseason, he has a good chance to become the first Mr. November in baseball history.

But while the American media focuses its attention on Jeter, Seattle fans and the entire Japanese media focus on the other dazzling player in this series and the most exciting player in the game today. Ichiro: the man, the legend, the bobblehead doll.

Ichiro led the Pacific League in batting seven consecutive years before coming to the majors to test himself against the best players in the world. There were questions whether he could catch up to big league fastballs and hold up to a 162-game season, but he answered them all as easily as Dr. Stephen Hawking in the quantum mechanics edition of Trivial Pursuit. He led the league in batting with more hits than anyone since 1930, led the majors in stolen bases and led the world's paparazzi in highest bounty for a naked photo (non-Anna Kournikova division).

With twice as many RBI, almost as many runs, almost as high an on-base percentage and far more runs than Ichiro, Seattle second baseman Bret Boone should be the league's MVP. But Ichiro brings a special something to the Mariners. He's the one who makes the team go and was as responsible as anyone in taking the Mariners from the wild-card finish last year and championship series loss to the 116-win powerhouse this year.

	“	What doesn't he do? About the only thing he doesn't do is hit 50 home runs, and if he wanted to, he could do that, too. In batting practice, he hits some of the longest balls we've seen. If he wanted to hit .280, drive in 120 runs and hit 40 home runs, you could put him in the No. 3 or 4 hole and he could do that. ”
		— Seattle reliever Norm Charlton on teammate Ichiro Suzuki

As Torre said, "He has really changed the dynamics of the ballclub because he is so good."

There is no such thing as a routine grounder with Ichiro. In fact, normally routine grounders become the most exciting plays in baseball when Ichiro bats.

In Seattle's series-clinching victory over Cleveland in Game 5 Monday, Ichiro hit a sharp grounder to shortstop Omar Vizquel, who came up firing. Vizquel released the ball so quickly that every other player in the majors would have been out easily. Not Ichiro. He was safe with his 12th hit of the series and came around to score for an important insurance run.

The Mariners have seen this sort of thing all season, but even they shook their heads over that one.

"What doesn't he do?" reliever Norm Charlton said. "About the only thing he doesn't do is hit 50 home runs, and if he wanted to, he could do that, too. In batting practice, he hits some of the longest balls we've seen. If he wanted to hit .280, drive in 120 runs and hit 40 home runs, you could put him in the No. 3 or 4 hole and he could do that.

"He forces the fielders to play differently. He forces the infield to play in. He forces them to get to the ball and get rid of it quickly. He forces the pitcher to pay attention to him when he's on first. He forces the catcher to call the game differently, so he can get more fastballs in case he tries to steal. Although, he's going to steal it anyway. And defensively, is there somebody with a better arm than him?’’

How good is Ichiro's arm? He once kept a runner from scoring from third base on a single.

Stymied at finding a hole in Ichiro's game, Charlton finally offered, "He doesn't speak English well.’’

True. Ichiro speaks through a translator and is as elusive in front of his locker (head bowed, rarely looking at reporters) as he is on the bases. He's essentially talked about how much he looked forward to playing in the postseason atmosphere and how it hasn't disappointed him.

"I knew pressure in my career before, but I experienced a different kind of pressure this time,’’ he said. "Every day I am nervous. There is no day when I am not nervous. All the players are somehow nervous, but we might not show it in our faces if we do well."

At every stage this season, the first Japanese position player in major league history proved he belonged here. He showed he could handle a major league fastball in spring training. Then he showed he could hit during the regular season. Then he showed he could hit his second time through the league. Then he showed he could hold up over the entire course of a season, batting .350. Then he showed he could handle playoff pressure, hitting .600 in the division series.

And now heads into a longer, more important series against the best team of the past five years. If he doesn't excel in this series as well, it will only because Jeter came up with enough spectacular plays to keep him off the bases.

One of them, I can only assume, will involve emerging from a cornfield.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.