SEATTLE MARINERS

Drayer: Ichiro’s remarkable journey on precipice of baseball immortality

Jan 20, 2025, 9:44 AM | Updated: Jan 21, 2025, 10:53 am

It has been a forgone conclusion since well before Ichiro took his final bow with the Seattle Mariners in the Tokyo Dome in front of thousands of fans, some with tears streaming down their faces, chanting his name over and over. But Tuesday it will become a reality when Ichiro looks at his ringing phone and sees the words “Cooperstown, N.Y.”

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Ichiro will be congratulated for being voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by voters from the BBWAA. He will be invited to Cooperstown for a press conference and a tour – which, with the number of trips he has made to the Hall of Fame Museum on his own, he himself could lead. For all that he has accomplished and achieved, he has studied that of others. He has learned the game’s history and shown great reverence for the greats he will soon join in enshrinement.

Tuesday will mark the beginning of the completion of the full circle. From 2001 to 2025, a remarkable journey unfolded – a journey that many in the beginning would have seen improbable if not downright impossible. A journey that ends in baseball immortality.

It is a journey that started with question marks. As the first major league position player to come from Japan, Ichiro was a pioneer, and as such, there was much to overcome. Despite his accomplishments in Japan, many were skeptical he could do the same against MLB pitching, particularly at his size. There was skepticism in his own first spring training camp with the now famous story of Seattle Mariners manager Lou Piniella, exasperated after watching the left-handed hitter hit soft grounder after soft grounder to the left side in spring games, asking Ichiro if he could pull the ball to the right side. Perhaps all Lou had to do was ask. In his next at-bat, Ichiro pulled the ball to the right side, right out of the ballpark.

Ichiro was going to do things his way. Start to finish. He didn’t come to the US to conform to the game as many expected him to do. He was going to play his game in the US, and it was clear it translated. In the process, rather than him learning us, we learned him. What an education it was.

As a reporter, one of the best things about having Ichiro on the team was that on any given day we could see something that was not seen on any other field or any other clubhouse in baseball.

The daily stretching routines – one on the ground in front of his locker that I am convinced would blow out the knees of any ballplayer, then pregame sitting on his chair, legs tucked under him, eating the rice balls his wife prepared daily for him to take to work.

The care that he put into how he treated his equipment, going so far as to tape two popsicle sticks, parallel to each other, to the bench to provide a rack of sorts for his lacquered black bat to rest against during games.

His fastidiousness in his craft knew no bounds, right down to how the outfield grass was mowed. There was rhyme and reason to the pattern, with Ichiro asking they be mowed in a specific direction to assist the baseball on the path to the glove.

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For the fans, Ichiro provided a show. He believed entertainment was part of his job and in lean years said he especially felt responsible for providing something for the fans to enjoy. The show he put on in 2004, possibly his finest.

Close to breaking George Sisler’s record 257 hits in a single season, a record that stood for 84 years, Ichiro went on a hot streak on the road that thankfully for Mariners fans tailed off just before the team returned home for the final three games of the season. The team at the time was 62-97, but no matter, the final homestand sold out. On Oct. 1, 2004, Ichiro broke Sisler’s record with his 258th hit – and he finished with 262, proving sometimes what seems impossible in baseball is not.

He sparked the imagination, especially with kids. His name back then was always the first out of a child’s mouth when asked to name their favorite player. He was fully embraced by the Seattle fanbase and went out of his way to thank them during his Mariners Hall of Fame induction speech in 2022.

“When I returned in 2018, it was as if I had never left,” he said. “The passion with which you welcomed me back touched my heart. It is one of the best memories of my career and I will never forget that feeling. It is my greatest honor to have played for you as a Seattle Mariner. I will keep doing my best for you and the Mariners. Thank you.”

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Ichiro amassed a record 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons on the way to 3,089 in Major League Baseball. After his 2,500th, he shared the motivation behind each and every one of them when asked what the accomplishment meant to him.

“When I first got here, if I said on my first day that my goal is to hit 2,500, people would say you are crazy,” he said through his interpreter. “I think there are two things that come in mind. There’s that passion, the love for the game that kept me motivated to this day, and there’s also the criticism that came along with it that keeps burning in my heart that brought me to this day.”

Love of the game, and maybe not necessarily proving others wrong but showing what he as an individual in the game could do, have driven Ichiro from an early age. Later in his career, when records were no longer attainable, his spot in the everyday lineup no longer secure, he spoke of wanting to play until he was 50 in part to provide motivation in showing it could be done. Not that he could do it, rather that the human body with diligent work was capable of doing it.

The love of the game is still evident with Ichiro in uniform going through his routine and taking on the job of being the catch partner of Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez before most home games in Seattle. His is a story unlike any other in the game, and it will be further shared with Tuesday marking the beginning of a celebration of sorts of Ichiro leading up to induction day, July 27. We will be here for all of it.

The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class will be announced during a broadcast starting at 3 p.m. Tuesday on MLB Network.

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