Of all the things to paint on the airplane, why "Seattle Mariners?"

The new-build Me 262 project is located at Paine Field, north of Seattle. Presumably, this is the artist's view of a relation between the player, team and aircraft. What this has to do with Eva, I haven't a clue.

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html

I'm just trying to figure out the Ichiro connection.