By Staff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

FILE – Seattle Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki, of Japan, hits a solo home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels, Sunday, May 31, 2009, in Anaheim, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
Japanese-born Major League Baseball (MLB) player Ichiro Suzuki was one of the three baseball players elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame today. Suzuki is the first Asian baseball player to be elected into the Hall of Fame, and received an almost unanimous vote.
Suzuki played for the Seattle Mariners for 14 of the 19 years he was an MLB player. He played professionally for 28 seasons in total, including his time in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
During his career, the now-51-year-old Suzuki was selected a consecutive 17 times both as an All-Star and Gold Glove winner, was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) four times, and won nine league batting titles. He is thus-far unsurpassed by any other player in his single-season hit record, which stands at 262 hits. Over the course of his career, he had 4367 hits.
He also won a consecutive seven batting titles in the NPB, and three consecutive Pacific League MVP Awards.
In a press conference on Jan. 21, the Mariners announced that they are planning to retire Suzuki’s number, 51, on Aug. 9 this year.
“In 2001 my journey here began, [and] 2012 it ended. In 2018 I was able to come back,” Suzuki said, during the press conference. “I remember that opening day [in] 2019, how warm and welcoming the fans were and that moment will be in the top five moments in my career where the Seattle fans accepted me again, and it meant so much. … The feelings that I have towards the Seattle fans is very special.”
Suzuki also joined the Mariners as a special assistant chairman and instructor in 2019.