On Sunday, all of the baseball world will celebrate Ichiro Suzuki as he is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
HOF-bound Ichiro reflects on early days with Seattle Mariners
Perhaps the most fascinating player in the history of the game, his professional baseball career that started in Japan in 1992 will come full circle as he takes his place among the greats in Cooperstown. His bronze plaque in the Plaque Gallery will be inscribed with the accomplishments few, if any, believed he could achieve when he first arrived from Japan in 2001. The accomplishments and numbers are and will remain for the game.
Ichiro himself views his biggest on-field accomplishment as something more personal.
“There are records and many numbers that I have that are obviously special,” Ichiro said at a January press conference following the announcement of his election to the Hall of Fame, “but one that comes to mind is that in May 2018, I was no longer an active Major League baseball player.
“Until 2019 spring training I was not on the roster, so all I could do was come to the field and practice.”
Drayer: Ichiro’s remarkable journey on precipice of baseball immortality
In November 2017, following his 17th year in Major League Baseball, Ichiro’s contract with the Miami Marlins ended and he was granted free agency. While he was determined to keep playing, the offers that winter did not come. Early in spring training, however, the door opened to return to the Mariners when Ben Gamel suffered an oblique injury. The team needed an outfielder, and a then 44-year-old Ichiro was signed.
He played in 15 games that season until the team announced before a May 3 game against the A’s that Ichiro had been removed from the 25-man roster and would transition to a new role as an advisor – while continuing to suit up and practice with the team. Both Ichiro and Jerry Dipoto (then Seattle’s general manager, now the team’s president of baseball operations) stressed on that day that it was not an official retirement, but Dipoto did make it clear the outfielder would not be on the active roster for the rest of the season.
What this would look like moving forward became apparent immediately. Ichiro’s routine remained the same. He came to the field at the same time, got dressed at his locker, and did his stretches and work inside before heading out to the field for batting practice. He prepared for the game in exactly the same way he had in the days and years before.
Only there was no game. No reward of the game, the competition or what one gets in being a part of a team and contributing to a win or loss. Because of the baseball rules then, Ichiro was not even allowed to be in the dugout during the games.
It’s hard to imagine what this must have felt like. Yet that 2018 season, along with his final two games for the Mariners in Japan the following year, were the first top career accomplishments that came to mind for him when asked shortly after learning he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“I came to the field and practiced with the team, and that was an everyday thing and that’s an experience many guys do not get to experience. But I did that,” he said. “I was given the opportunity to do that. In 2019, I hadn’t told anyone that I was going to be retiring, so when the game finished and all the media stuff was finished, the fans were still there. That experience I had there, those two games (in Japan), the 2018 and 2019 seasons, those things will be something I cherish, and something that will help me throughout my life and something I can look back and fill with joy and cherish those moments.
“Those experiences in 2018 and 2019 are going to be the moments I look back at.”
Ichiro goes out “the right way”
The Hall of Famer-to-be is perhaps the last person you would expect to see camped out on the field at T-Mobile Park under the giant “Countdown to Cooperstown, 5 Days” banner above right field, awaiting line drives off the bat of a player getting extra early work with a coach 300-plus feet away. But any preparation for the event of a baseball lifetime would have to take a spot behind what Ichiro dedicates himself to on a daily basis when the Mariners are home.
He is present and available to the players, coaches and front office members before the games. There is a lightness about Ichiro now that was not present in 2018, and to hear him say in January that experience was one of two standout moments in his career and an experience he would cherish was a surprise – and something that had been on my mind since.
All the work but none of the games. What was the significance of that time to him? Five days before Cooperstown, Ichiro answered that question.
“There are a lot of players that can pass my records,” he said through interpreter Allen Turner. “Of the things that I’ve done in my career, anybody, if they put in a lot of years, can pass up those those numbers. But 2018 for me was a trial.
“With that being said, I was put in a situation where I had to not be a player and go through that whole season of preparation so that I could be back in 2019.”
The significance of coming back in 2019, of course, was that the Mariners were to open their season in Ichiro’s native Japan with two games against the A’s in the Tokyo Dome.
“I think a lot of people thought that I would just give up and that I would just call it quits,” Ichiro continued. “And so those months that I worked hard and did the things that I needed to do to prepare myself for 2019, I don’t think anybody could do that, duplicate what I did. That’s why it meant a lot to me, that experience (in 2018 followed by) the 2019 finish.”
For Ichiro, the 2019 finish was not the only reward of the trials he put himself through the year before.
“Not just in baseball too, but just being an adult,” he said. “You know, a child is out there, they show their emotions when things get tough (or) they quit. But as adults, there are times where you have to take it. Where you have to be patient. Where you have to really overcome the things that come at you.
“And so it was a learning experience of not just baseball but also just being, as a person, how to live and how to be able to overcome adversity that comes your way.”
Ichiro had faced doubt before. He faced the challenges and spotlight that come with being a pioneer in his sport. He faced losing seasons – one historic – where he felt he needed to put on whatever show he could to give the fans something.
In 2009, a bleeding ulcer forced him to the injured list for the very first time. He had faced struggle and getting older in the game. He faced chasing numbers and milestones with an unimaginable number of eyes and hopes on him, every move covered by an enormous press contingent that followed him.
Was the experience in 2018 the biggest trial of his career?
“After becoming a professional, yes,” he said. “That was definitely the hardest.”
The biggest trial of his storied career came at the end, and it was a trial he chose to take on. To this day, he is grateful for his choice.
“I take it as, I overcame that,” he said. “I was able to take that and I was able to experience that 2019 finish that obviously meant a lot.”
In 2019, we witnessed a storybook end to Ichiro’s career with a jam-packed crowd at the Tokyo Dome calling him out of the clubhouse for a frenzied, epic and emotional curtain call 30 minutes after the team had left the field. It was a Hall of Fame finish.
“To start a career, guys are out there getting it going, but to finish a career, it’s really hard. Like, when to do it. How to do it. What is the end going to look like?” he said. “And so I felt like because I had that 2018, I was able to have that 2019 and finish the way that was perfect. Go out the right way, and so I give that to the 2018 experience once again that I was able to overcome those months and I was able to finish it out in 2019.”
The trials of 2018 ultimately gave Ichiro peace of mind with what came next.
“That’s why I’m here, able to do what I’m doing now with the Mariners,” he said. “I don’t have any regrets of playing because I did what I needed to do. Now if I wouldn’t have done that, I’m sure I would have had that urge to play. Maybe I would have tried to play.
“But because I finished the way I did, there was a closure where I do look back and there’s not that urge to go out and play a game, because I gave it all I had.”
Seattle Mariners coverage
• Mariners get All-Star 1B Josh Naylor in trade with D-backs
• What the Mariners said about trade for Josh Naylor
• Mariners still eyeing Suárez reunion even after Naylor trade
• Keith Law says Cole Young is Mariners’ best prospect to trade
• Seattle Mariners minor league games added to ROOT TV schedule
