Ichiro Suzuki, the dominant contact hitter whose 19 years in the major leagues, mostly with the Seattle Mariners, was lined with records and accolades, on Tuesday became the first Asian player elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.
He received 99.7 percent of the vote, missing a unanimous selection by one total vote. New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, inducted in 2019, remains the only member of the Baseball Hall of Fame to receive 100%.
Ichiro joins starting pitcher CC Sabathia and relief pitcher Billy Wagner as part of the class of 2025 headed to Cooperstown, New York.
Ichiro made his debut with the Mariners in 2001, becoming the first Japanese position player to join Major League Baseball. That season he won both the American League MVP and Rookie of the Year awards.
He went on to be a 10-time All Star and earned 10 Gold Glove awards for exceptional defense and three Silver Slugger awards for his elite offensive ability. Ichiro earned a reputation as an exceptional leadoff hitter (with a .311 career batting average) as well as a formidable right fielder who, even at 5-foot-9, was known to scale the outfield wall to rob a home run.
Ichiro racked up 3,089 hits in MLB after already having played nine years in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league. Combining his hits from both leagues, he had 4,367 hits across his professional career, the most of any player in baseball history.
Ichiro told NBC News in a 2022 interview that he endured his share of challenges after arriving in Seattle and was intensely aware of how American fans would perceive him. While he said he didn’t set out to “perform for Asians,” he knew his performance would be scrutinized if he didn’t deliver.
“As a player from Japan, as a guy that had led the league in hitting all seven years, and then coming over being a first position player, I knew that I would be judged. And Japan baseball will be judged on how I did,” Ichiro said through a translator. “If I wasn’t able to produce, then they would judge Japan baseball as being at a lower level. And so that pressure was there and that’s what I had to carry.”
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Early on, fans would heckle him with jeers like, “Go back to Japan,” Ichiro recalled, describing those interactions as “the norm” for him at the time. But he quickly chipped away at those who sought to doubt or dismiss him, hitting a home run in his first road game. In 2019,he retired with the Mariners, playing his final game at the Tokyo Dome against the Oakland Athletics.
Ichiro was also voted this month into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 323 out of 349 votes in his first year of eligibility. In 2022, he was the first Asian player to be inducted into the Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame.
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