I don’t think the reporters were wrong to write about it, or question him on it. Despite what he’s saying now, I think 200 hits was and is a big deal to him.

A Japanese friend who is also very proficient in English told me that he got a quite different impression from the original Ichiro interview. The English version comes off as maybe too flippant from some reason, but in the original Japanese, Ichiro is more subdued and serious in general. Translations are hard, but it is important to try to convey the general tone accurately or you get wrong impressions.

And I saw an interesting comment which seems relevant:

And his responses were in large part just because of the nature of the questions being asked. At a certain point I was wondering whether the media was trying to bait him into saying whether or not he would turn out another 200 hit season and he was trying to tell them, "Look. If I say I will, then I’m considered a selfish ass. If I say I won’t, same thing. Then the results just makes people say even more, so I’d just rather not comment at all."

I’d say the media was being a bigger ass than he ever would be.