COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — He had walked via these large pink doorways earlier than — seven occasions earlier than. However this was completely different.
This was go to No. 8, on a frosty, 14-degree Thursday morning in January. This time, Ichiro Suzuki was strolling via these doorways, of the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame, as one of many legends.
“That is my eighth time right here within the Corridor of Fame — and what an honor it’s for me to be right here as a Corridor of Famer,” stated the one man in historical past who can say he slashed 4,367 hits within the two biggest leagues on Earth, first in Japan’s Pacific League, then in Main League Baseball.
“This,” he stated, “is only a very particular second.”
However is it honest to surprise if this was even greater than his always-churning mind cells might presumably comprehend?
Babe Ruth has a plaque on this place. Willie Mays has a plaque on this place. Henry Aaron has a plaque on this place. However nobody has ever walked via these doorways with the sport-changing, Corridor-changing, planet-changing potentialities of Ichiro.
As the primary participant elected from Japan, he enters the Corridor as greater than only a baseball participant, extra than simply the transcontinental Hit King. He’s actually a person who connects the continents.
It’s 6,596 miles from Tokyo to Cooperstown. That looks as if rather a lot. Just one man has ever been elected to the Corridor of Fame who might shrink that journey: Ichiro Suzuki.
However even he hasn’t totally grasped that reality but.
On Thursday, he strolled gracefully onstage on the Grandstand Theater for his official Corridor of Fame press convention. He took a seat subsequent to his longtime translator, Allen Turner, and the opposite two males who had been elected to the Corridor with him Tuesday, Billy Wagner and CC Sabathia.
Ichiro, CC and Billy, welcome to your future and without end dwelling. pic.twitter.com/7a0kHTkPQz
— Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) January 23, 2025
Wagner humanized his extended path to election, by discovering himself unable to cease the tears from flowing as he tried to seize the that means of lastly being elected, in his tenth and closing spin on the poll.
“It’s humbling,” he stated. “I don’t know if it’s deserving.”
Sabathia flashed that signature smile and expressed his awe on the considered “being on this museum without end.”
However Ichiro spent the subsequent 34 minutes reminding us of why sparks fly each time he enters any room.
He was a person who performed baseball so quick, for 19 spectacular major-league seasons. However on today — with the phrases, HALL OF FAME, inscribed on his new jersey — he spoke so slowly. He uttered the phrases nearly statesman-like, pausing to consider carefully about each reply, and at occasions, each sentence.
He mustered solely the slimmest of smiles as he invited the one thriller voter who left him off the poll to cease by his home — “and we’ll have a drink collectively and have a superb chat.”
He playfully revealed that his favourite artifact within the Corridor is the plaque that was as soon as chiseled for his canine, Ikky. (And sure, that basically occurred.)
He swirled a query round his mind about what he would say now to the rookie model of himself, then replied: “Imagine in your self. And never have any concern.”
However when the subject turned to how his election might rattle the Corridor’s Richter scale as soon as his plaque hangs in that gallery in July, Suzuki couldn’t wrap his thoughts round that thought.
Full disclosure: It was a query from me that tossed this ball within the air. Right here’s how that went:
QUESTION: “Ichiro, I do know that you simply’ve spoken about how the Corridor of Fame has modified you and the way in which you take a look at the historical past of baseball. I’m wondering when you assume that you’ve got modified the Corridor of Fame not directly, and the Corridor of Fame now, in Japan, will likely be a shrine in a manner that it by no means was earlier than?”
ICHIRO (VIA TRANSLATOR): “I’m not in a position to reply that but. You recognize, different individuals voted me in. Different individuals determine how I used to be. And in order that’s a troublesome one to reply.”
He then listened to Turner translate his phrases — and realized he had yet another factor so as to add.
“If I used to be up right here,” he stated, “saying, ‘Man, I modified the Corridor of Fame,’ you’d assume I’m loopy.”
It was the quip of the day. Laughter rippled via the room. However if you wish to know the reality, he’s about to assume that the remainder of us are loopy — as a result of the Tokyo to Cooperstown freeway is now open. And don’t be shocked if, by Induction Weekend in July, it’s almost as jammed because the New York State Thruway.
On this aspect of the Pacific, will we even fathom the worldwide magnetism of this dude? He’s a one-of-a-kind worldwide baseball rock star. And he has blazed a path from Nishi Kasugai-gun, the city of his beginning, to the plaque gallery in Cooperstown, that appears extra like a comet streaking throughout the baseball sky.
Ichiro acknowledges the applauding crowd throughout his closing MLB sport on March 21, 2019, in Tokyo. (Masterpress / Getty Pictures)
He got here to America in 2001, attempting to show that he and his nation had been worthy of their place on this sport. Greater than 3,000 hits and 19 seasons later, the largest baseball names from his land are actually streaming throughout the ocean.
The {dollars} these males are amassing are staggering the payroll construction. And if you level them towards the sphere, Shohei Ohtani and his countrymen are among the many most magnetic points of interest within the sport.
However it began with Ichiro. He turned baseball upside-down. And right here’s a prediction: He’s not finished.
Contained in the Corridor, they’re widening their creativeness as they stay up for life inside a museum that now has Ichiro as part of it. They don’t have any alternative, after all, as a result of that is occurring.
“Ichiro’s election has the potential to convey an excellent wider worldwide viewers to the Corridor of Fame and Museum than we now have beforehand skilled,” the president of the Corridor, Josh Rawitch, instructed The Athletic by way of textual content Thursday. “From these desirous to see his plaque or our new exhibit targeted on the Transpacific Change of the Sport, we anticipate much more followers to come back from Japan and all around the globe.”
We don’t know what number of hundreds of thousands of baseball followers reside in Japan. However is it actually that preposterous to visualise a world wherein a whole lot of 1000’s of them are about to position Cooperstown atop their checklist of North American journey locations?
Or simply take into consideration six months from now, when Ichiro’s Induction Day arrives in Cooperstown on July 27. Almost 90 years after the primary Induction Day in 1936, the document for largest attendance at any ceremony is 82,000, for Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn in 2007.
Is it actually a stretch to foretell that we might see greater than 100,000 unfold out on the Cooperstown hillside to rejoice Ichiro, the immensely fashionable Sabathia and the remainder of the Class of 2025? Why wouldn’t it be?
Then additionally bear in mind this: Is there any extra passionate spokesperson for the magical baseball kingdom of Cooperstown than … yep … Ichiro Suzuki?
Have you ever ever heard of some other participant who has visited the Corridor of Fame seven occasions — all whereas nonetheless an energetic participant? Need to guess why he saved touring again to this place? Don’t hassle. Ichiro instructed us himself this week why Cooperstown saved drawing him again.
On Tuesday night, a number of hours after studying he’d been elected, he instructed the media in Seattle all about his first journey to the Corridor after his first season in America, in 2001. He’d simply damaged the all-time document for many hits in a season by a rookie, with 242. So he set off for upstate New York to study extra concerning the man who had set that document in 1911. That man was Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Suzuki was led into the basement again then, to the non-public archives, to carry the bat and really feel the presence of Shoeless Joe. He was blown away by how the expertise enabled him to “actually get shut” to a person who had been lifeless for half a century.
“So I used to be in a position to get near him, and I used to be in a position to contact his stuff,” Ichiro stated that evening. “And I discovered that he had footwear. I didn’t know that. I at all times thought that he didn’t put on footwear.”
However that day, he discovered the reality — that there was just one sport wherein “Shoeless Joe” didn’t put on footwear. And from that second on, Ichiro was hooked on Cooperstown. So he saved venturing again, yr after yr, to attach with the enduring gamers of yesteryear whose information he’d been chasing.
“It was nearly like having a dialog with them,” Ichiro stated. “And it’s simply such a particular feeling that you simply get there. In order that’s why, for me, going to the Corridor of Fame was particular.”
Indicators of greatness.
Ichiro reunites with the Ichi-Meter! pic.twitter.com/UitIjnLdLX
— Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) January 23, 2025
He might have stopped this advert marketing campaign with that. However no. He had extra Cooperstown melodies to sing.
“You recognize, this present day, there’s a lot stress, particularly on this planet we reside in right this moment,” he stated. “However, man, there’s a city only for baseball. And also you go there and also you see perhaps one thing that you simply skilled. … And also you simply really feel that peace.”
There’s no indication that he’d been employed by the Cooperstown Journey Bureau to say any of this — however he nonetheless wasn’t completed. He then forged his gaze on the gamers of his sport. He wanted to clarify to them what they’re lacking — by heading for the subsequent tee time each winter as an alternative of to “a city only for baseball.”
“I at all times felt just like the Corridor of Fame was for energetic gamers,” Suzuki stated. “I actually felt like all of the gamers must go, and so they might really feel simply that peace that baseball brings. It’s not for retired guys. It’s for, actually, the energetic gamers to go and get the peace that they should hold enjoying.
“And so,” he stated, “if there’s a place that I like to recommend going to, that will be the place: Cooperstown, for positive, for everyone to go.”
Technically talking, he was addressing these remarks to baseball gamers in all places. However who else was listening? Japan was listening. All of it. As a result of his compatriots grasp on each phrase he speaks and each transfer he makes.
Don’t you surprise what number of of them have already booked their flights? Don’t you surprise what number of of them will likely be streaming down Major Avenue in July? Don’t you surprise not simply when that parade will begin, but in addition when it should finish … if ever?
We’re thundering towards Cooperstown’s Summer time of Ichiro, co-starring one of the vital compelling courses in years, with CC, Wagner and the 2 males elected by the Basic Baseball Period Committee, Dick Allen and Dave Parker. However the Summer time of Ichiro might by no means finish.
So he walked via these large pink doorways Thursday morning as a brand new Corridor of Famer, able to signal the placard the place his plaque will reside, to tour the museum and to reconnect with Wagner and Sabathia — as a result of they’ll be bonded by this shared expertise without end.
However inside these doorways, the place an exhibit honoring baseball throughout the Pacific was underneath development, there was already a unique feeling within the air. Ichiro was again on the town. And you would really feel his footsteps reverberating — all the way in which from Cooperstown to Kyoto.
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(Prime picture of Ichiro Suzuki: Hans Pennink / Related Press)