I wish I could say that every time I sit down to write a column about baseball, I tug my right sleeve with my left hand. But consistency never was my thing. Nevertheless, in honor of the most unusual, successful, consistent athlete in my experience around Seattle sports, I start today. Ichiro Suzuki, this tug’s for you.
I will leave to others in the tribe of baseball voters/scholars to decide whether that tug is a greater honor than Ichiro being selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame Tuesday. Among the 396 Baseball Writers Association of America who returned a ballot, 395 had checked Ichiro. By a single vote, he missed becoming the second unanimous selection ever — Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera was the first — in the Hall’s 81-year history.
Until I sleuth out the anonymous wretch responsible, and punish him by making him watch film of the entire 1969 season of the misbegotten Seattle Pilots, the tug and this essay is the best I can do for Ichiro (I long ago declined my opportunity to be a Hall voter, reasoning that if I were an electrician, I would not respect an industry award given to me by others whose experience with electricity peaked at flipping a light switch).
“I can’t imagine it would get to this point where I am today,” Ichiro said Tuesday via interpreter Allen Turner on MLB.com. “There was a time where I didn’t even know if I would be given the chance to play in MLB. What an honor it is for me to be here and be a Hall of Famer — it’s a special day.”
Few others around the game in the 1990s could have imagined differently. But we learned quickly.
I will confine the stat recital to my favorite Ichiro historical feat. In his first Mariners season of 2001 — when he was named American League Rookie of the Year as well as Most Valuable Player while his team won an other-worldly 116 games — Ichiro joined the immortal Jackie Robinson as the only players to lead the majors in batting average and stolen bases in the same season. I particularly enjoyed the symmetry of cultural breakthroughs: Robinson erased the white patriarchy myth about black players as Ichiro erased the white patriarchy myth of Japanese position players.
My favorite Ichiro personal accolade will never be part of his Cooperstown biography but was said well by longtime MLB player and manager Dusty Baker.
“I love the guy — he’s cool,” Baker said. “He’s got a cool hairstyle. Cool clothes. Cool car. Anyone who goes by one name has got to be cool.”
In Dusty I trusty.
The most intriguing aspect of Ichiro for me was less about the what and more about the how. For someone who is not physically imposing to impose his will on the game was an object of much fascination. Much of his resourcefulness had to do with his upbringing in the more disciplined Japanese baseball culture, along with the persistence of his father. Since Ichiro rarely explained much at length in the Seattle clubhouse, hiding behind a club-provided English interpreter that made real conversation clumsy, I had to find sources elsewhere to explain the mystery (FYI, he is quite fluent in English and Spanish, particularly when it comes to profanity).
In 2004, Sasquatch Books published “Ichiro on Ichiro,” which was mostly a series of conversations with author Narumi Komatsu. The book is a little self-serving, but when you seek to explain the inexplicable, help is where you find it.
One answer illuminated his understanding of the push-pull that hitters face at the plate.
“There’s two important elements in batting. There’s a part of you that needs to be aggressive and a part of you that needs to be patient. These are contradictory elements, but unless you can be both, there will be an imbalance in your batting. If one is stronger than the other, say the aggressive part, then you’ll chase pitches you don’t really want to go after. If the patient part is stronger, you won’t go after pitches you could hit. As long as both of these batting fundamentals work together, your batting will be in balance, and you’ll always be able to do well.”
If 10 consecutive seasons of 200-plus hits means anything, Ichiro found that balance better than anyone. Had Julio Rodriguez found that balance for most of the 2024 season, Mariners fans would still be giggling about how fun it was to be World Series first-timers.
The other part of the game where Ichiro exhibited mastery was baserunning. Yes, he was fast, but disruptive baserunning is more than pure speed.
“In 2002, in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays in Seattle, John Olerud was at bat and I was on third. We were in extra innings, and Olerud hit a grounder to second, driving me in, winning the game.
The Toronto infield was playing in, so anybody would think on a grounder to second, the runner from third would be tagged out at the plate. Our bench gave me the go sign, so I went for it. But if I had made a decision to go for it after the batter had hit, there’s no way I could have been safe. I had to have a mental image beforehand of the kind of pitches this pitcher might throw to Olerud, what kind of grounder he might hit and where, and the timing of my start for home. You have to have a mental image of those things before they happen. The pitcher was a southpaw who liked to throw sinkers. I imagined the ball would be hit to short or second. That’s exactly what happened.
Those times are the greatest. It feels good to hit a home run to win a game, for sure, but nothing could make a player happier than a case like this, where no one expects it. Those are the times I get emotional . . .”
Outsmarting the opponent seemed to be his greatest pleasure. But there were times where Ichiro’s obsessiveness didn’t help with teammates.
In pursuit of hits to keep up his batting average, he avoided taking walks or sacrifice bunts when the moments called for such tactics, because those plate appearances didn’t help his numbers. In the field, Ichiro was careful to avoid walls and falls. In Japanese culture, high respect goes to those who show up for work every day. Ichiro’s belief in staying healthy for the team’s sake sometimes collided with the all-out, all-the-time ethos of American players. Returning to the dugout with more grass stains might have been better clubhouse politics. But as Woody Allen said, showing up is 80 percent of life.
Many premier players have idiosyncrasies — Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, etc. — that always emerge over a 162-game season. Managing them all at once is baseball’s orneriest task, which is why Lou Piniella may have been the MVP of the Mariners’ glory years.
Most significantly, Ichiro was a master of himself. That allowed him to find balance, persistence and endurance to be so good for so long. Jim Colborn, a former big-league pitcher who, as a Mariners scout, connected with a young Ichiro in Japan, understood Ichiro’s mindset as well as anyone.
“Reggie Jackson could focus in the postseason, but Ichiro is much broader,” he said. “He can focus for a whole season.”
For a whole Hall of Fame career.
Thanks, Art. Very nicely done. What a great gift… to be living here in Seattle during those years and having Ichiro play for the Mariners. I went to Cooperstown in 2019 for the Edgar induction and I would encourage anyone and everyone to go this year. Lodging is not easy (we stayed in Utica, about a ~90 minute drive) but (as you know) it is really, really cool. An experience. Especially when it is “one of our own” and you wear the Mariners colors. Rivera may have been unanimous, but the Edgar crowd was totally in control in Cooperstown that weekend. There was NO QUESTION who’s induction it was! LOL. A lot of fun.
Good to hear about your experience, John. I imagine this year’s ceremony will be attended by so many Japanese fans and media that the nearest hotel vacancies will be Spokane.
9 voters left off Hank Aaron. 23 voters left off Willie Mays. 23 voters left off Stan Musial. 52 voters left off Sandy Koufax. Based on those statistics Ichiro has been shown a record amount of respect.
However it’s inconsistent that a closer, who doesn’t play a full slate of games and is a situational player, can achieve the unanimous milestone. Ichiro’s resume is only missing a World Series appearance. Unfortunately voters can remain anonymous if they want. The reason to vote for another player other than Ichiro would be like choosing Taco Del Mar as your favorite burger restaurant.
I don’t know if this is something that can or should be taken at face value or if the HOF has a vetting process for voting but to me there’s something foul in the state of Cooperstown.
Still a great moment in Mariners history and Felix should be joining Ichiro at some point. I would love it if Omar Vizquel could eventually get in so we could see the return of his Older Women For Omar fan base at his HOF induction.
That solo miscreant has been the object of too much attention, but I get it. Not sure about Felix. His three-season tailspin at the end will bother voters who put high value on consistent excellence. Regarding Omar, I don’t quite see HOF resume there.
The Basketball, Football and Hockey HOFs use committees comprised of former players, coaches/executives and media, and said groups meet up to select their nominees each year. The committee members’ identities are public, but neither their specific votes nor the exact total votes for the year’s slate are released.
In the Baseball HOF’s case, it’s solely up to the Baseball Writers’ Association members, and because there are so many voting members each election (more than 800, compared to as few as 19 in the hockey committee), expediency necessitates just sending in ballots instead of meeting and debating candidates. Baseball does release exact vote totals, and several writers publicize their ballots, so there’s a transparency the other halls lack.
Unfortunately, a lot of writers use their ballots to grandstand. Some refuse to vote for PED-related players, others withheld votes for players they didn’t get along with. Then you get Tom Seaver, who fell five votes short of unanimity … for reasons Seaver had nothing to do with. One voter was recovering from heart surgery and overlooked Seaver’s name in his wooziness; another refused to vote for first-year eligible players on principle; and three turned in blank ballots in protest over Pete Rose’s ineligibility. (Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/mariano-rivera-first-unanimous-hall-famer-baseball-history-205550785.html)
I’m a believer in transparency as well as very limited media participation. Thanks, Kirkland, for your research here.
I too believe that the HOF process for choosing new members is flawed. It is obvious that many voters do not do their homework regarding the actual stats and impact of various players (see Edgar), relying too much on reputations (earned or not), and their own parochial attitudes. That may slowly be changing, but there will always be the occasional doofus like the guy who wouldn’t vote for Ichiro.
In fairness, the 10 year eligibility rule is not a bad thing, and there is the veterans committee available to right some wrongs after that 10 year period.
That committee may be the only hope for Omar. He had domestic abuse charges filed against him, since exonerated. In addition, he had sexual abuse charges filed against him by a batboy for the minor league team he was managing. Apparently a settlement has been reached in that case. But his reputation has taken a huge hit, and he may not ever recover from it. Such is life, regardless of the HOF.
The advent of comprehensive data analysis makes voting potentially much more accurate, and newer voters take advanced data seriously. But human bias/laziness will always factor in, just as with the Oscars. Thanks for the Omar update.
The Football HOF has an exceptional policy: Only the player’s on-field accomplishments go into account. Whether he was a model citizen or a convicted felon off it does not factor. That’s why O.J. and Ray Lewis didn’t have their enshrinements revoked or blocked because of their legal and criminal histories. And although some want the late Pat Tillman enshrined for sacrificing his NFL career for military service, his short four seasons don’t allow for a candidacy with that on-field only directive.
So if the Baseball HOF used that rule, they would instruct the voters not to take into account the allegations against Vizquel while filling out their ballots. They’d probably have to let Curt Schilling in too, his numbers would overcome what’s by all accounts his ugly personality. That said, how the PED issue would play into that on-field only rule, I’m not sure.
PED violations can fall within the game’s rules, and were bargained collectively, so the sanctions likely would prevail — if the rules were in place during the player’s career. Oddly enough, the hall is not part of MLB, but independent. That’s smart, but its operators rarely drift from the customs of the day. Your point about the football hall is a good one, and keeps it from the gnarly mess MLB finds itself annually in the hall voting.
Thanks for this Art.
I lived in the Bay Area for almost 20 years; I was in attendance when Ichiro threw out Terrance Long at 3rd with that laser now (and forever) remembered as “The Throw.” The crowd reacted with a hushed “woaaa” knowing they didn’t see just a great play, but something iconic.
Rather than simply appreciate and admire greatness and leave it at that, the increasingly inane world of sports journalism always attempts to diminish greatness by virtue of comparisons. “Is player A better than player B?” “Can so-and-so be a GOAT if he/she hasn’t won a championship?”
To the best of my knowledge, no legitimate comparison’s ever been made between “Player A” and Ichiro. His playing style, the aura about him, everything – he was simply incomparable. Ichiro was unique, quirky (you described him well). A generational talent who became an icon playing America’s pastime. We were lucky to have seen him firsthand and most likely we’ll never see anyone else like him again.
The word unique is readily overused and misused. Not regarding Ichiro. From talent to personality, no one is close.
Very much enjoyed your “column”, Art. I’m still sorry you retired (and then retired your website), but (I think) I understand. I will say it’s a lot harder coping with what passes as sports journalism in this town without you (and the inanity it provokes with reader comments). But as someone observed above (to paraphrase), such is life.
Thanks Terrence. What I can explain is that after a professional life hitched to the tyranny of the urgent, I’m feeling better now.
I got to watch Ichiro during his time here in Seattle. I also got to watch him play at Yankee Stadium in NY once he was traded. Too bad he belongs to the Mariners ownership thinking that we can have only maybe 2 Superstars at a time here in Seattle so we could have seen both him and King Felix play in the World Series in their primes. Yes, it was frustrating watching him avoid taking walks or laying down sacrifice bunts but he more than made up for it with his consistent hitting, laser throws and cunning on the base paths. It was always nice to head down to Safeco Field and see dozens of fans and media who traveled from Japan to attend every game he played here. Thanks for the memories, Ichiro, see you in Cooperstown!
For a little guy, it was remarkable how much gravity his mass generated.