Fun With Translations

But you know, in Japanese that number change would mean something.

Let me elaborate: There are different ways to read numbers in Japanese. The proper way to read fifty-four would be gojuh-shi (rendered into English phonetics that would be something like go-joo-she). The Japanese often read numbers literally as five-four or go-shi. Since shi is a homonym for "die" in Japanese, go-shi could be interpreted as "die five times" or mixed with English could mean "go die."

Now, 53 read as five-three in Japanese is go-mi (pronounced "go-me"). Taken as separate syllables, that doesn't mean anything in Japanese, but when put together they form the word gomi which is Japanese for garbage.

Maybe the team knows more than they are letting on.

Thinking about numbers, and combining English and Japanese again, Ichiro's 51 means, "Go Ichi." I'm guessing this is intentional on Ichiro's part.