Ichiro , 45, retires as the active Major League hits leader, ranking 21st all-time in MLB history with 3, career hits. On Aug. On June 15, he recorded the 4,th hit of his career combined between Japan and MLB, unofficially breaking a tie with Pete Rose for most career professional hits.
He recorded the 4,th career hit of his professional career on Aug. Toronto becoming the third player to reach 4, hits when considering the highest levels of baseball in the U. On April 25, , vs. He owns 3 of the top 17 single-season hit totals in the Modern Era: in , in and in His refusal to take press conferences in English, relying instead on an interpreter, were criticized ever more stridently.
I am speechless by that contract. Paying Ichiro Suzuki — seven-time all-star, two-time batting champion, and holder of the MLB single-season hits record — like a superstar made perfect sense, because by almost any metric you chose he was one.
The United States was built on massive waves of immigration from across the world, and although the country as a whole has had a more fraught relationship with outsiders than it likes to think, the symbolism of the melting pot remains an important part of American culture and American pride. But while that harmonious metaphor has been seared into the mind of every high school student in the country, the assimilatory subtext has not.
The melting pot assimilates its members into an alloy, taking strength from newcomers but reducing them to the eigenculture. Immigrants should speak English, conform to the American dream of nuclear family and job fetishization, and live as fly-in-amber emblems of societal virtue. The country expects compliance from its imports, and is baffled — indeed shocked at a visceral level — when this compliance is withheld. That confusion can manifest itself in curious ways, especially when those imports are also major public figures.
Instead of being the finest fruit of a contemporary tradition of the game, it was easier to consider him as an American anachronism. The record had stood untroubled for 84 seasons, a relic of the dead ball era. The time-traveller interpretation of Ichiro, although amusing and vaguely romantic, manages to studiously ignore that Ichiro is a Japanese baseball player and embedded thoroughly within Asian baseball culture. Where the Major Leagues went for power, concentrating itself in the totemic forms of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa , Japanese teams have remained focused on finesse and collaborative play.
Ichiro, relentlessly focused on putting the ball in play, moving baserunners and terrorizing defenders with his speed, is a natural albeit unusual outcome of the style of play embraced in Japan.
His power played in games as well. When he wanted to go for a home run, Ichiro eschewed his usual swing, a gloriously perverse articulation of limbs that saw him sprinting out of the batters box as he guided bat to ball. Already he was on the map, being the first major league player in over 50 years since Jackie Robinson in to do so. The following season he tallied hits becoming the first player in Mariners history to have two consecutive hit seasons. He hasn't looked back since—10 years later he's yet to have a major league season with less than hits and is the only major league player in history who can say that.
It was only two years later that Ichiro garnered hits and broke George Sisler's record for most hits in a single season. According to Tokyo-based journalist Midori Masujima, Japan long held an inferiority complex when it came to sports. Thus was there a craving for approval from overseas, for a vindication of Japan itself, that attached itself to the athletes who made their way across the Pacific. I believe that they represent a new way of thinking, a new philosophy that has arisen within Japanese society, and that this new philosophy will have a tremendous influence.
As Whiting notes, because Ichiro played every day, he became daily national news, a sort of baseball emissary beating up American pitchers. Hideki Matsui followed Ichiro to the majors in , crossing the Pacific and signing with the Yankees. He found similar and prolonged success, racking up 16 home runs and RBIs in his rookie season and then taking home World Series MVP honors in Over the next decade, as Ichiro extended his career in New York and Miami, the level of Japanese baseball continued to rise.
Now the WBC comes around and they win. After being hampered by injuries in both and , the Japanese star has now exceeded every expectation as a two-way player, leading the league in home runs 44 and total WAR 7.
Much like Ichiro during his breakout campaign, Ohtani is redefining the parameters of the game, gunning for the American League MVP, and representing his country with pride in front of awe-inspired fans.
He is a great model to follow. Carrying all of the responsibilities that came with being the first Japanese-born MLB position player, he never wavered. Over the past 20 years, MLB has struggled to market and amplify its best players, until this latest wave of international stars: Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr.
And the qualities that endear those players to fans resemble what resonated about Ichiro in The former Orix pitching coach had taken the same job with the Dodgers that year, and embraced his friend in the dugout when the Mariners visited Los Angeles for a three-game series in July. Colborn smiled. Jake Kring-Schreifels is a sports and entertainment writer based in New York. His work has also appeared in Esquire. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
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