"For one brief, hilarious moment, it was just like old times for Ichiro.

There, seated in the locker across from his, once occupied by Ken Griffey Jr., new teammate Jack Cust did his best to make the longest-serving Mariners player laugh. Cust had his jeans rolled up high above his ankles, meant to imitate the type of "out there" fashion statements Ichiro has been making for years.

"Is that intentional, Jack?" a giggling Ichiro asked Cust, through interpreter Antony Suzuki.

"Yeah," Cust replied. "Ichiro wears his pants like this. That's the style. Too bad I don't have the belt to match."

Ichiro, wearing a thin, red leather belt over his own jeans, nodded his head in amusement. Cust soon departed, fist-bumping Ichiro as he left.

"He's a funny guy," Ichiro told reporters. "If you were to break it down, I'm the good sample and he's the bad sample. Say, for instance, if you see a (fashion) magazine where it says 'good' and 'bad'? I'd be on the good side and he'd be on the bad side."

The past two springs, it was Griffey who made Ichiro laugh almost daily, getting him to again feel part of a group of Mariners that had grown rather distant from him over the years. But the laughter largely stopped last summer when Griffey bolted into retirement, leaving the Mariners to flounder toward a disastrous 101-loss season.

At age 37, Ichiro now is a decade removed from his stunning debut in major-league baseball. He also appears no closer to an elusive championship that appeared so tantalizingly close during that 116-victory rookie season for him and the Mariners in 2001.

But Ichiro insists he has a bad memory when it comes to seasons like the one in 2010, choosing instead to focus on what's ahead."