Cooperstown is a unique little town in upstate New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, a recommended destination for any baseball fan. I’ve been there twice and hope to go again, because things may have changed a little in the 45 years since my last visit. You think?
As a rookie visitor to baseball’s shrine, I even managed a base-hit. Swinging in a batting cage at the Hall of Fame complex, I smacked a line drive that would’ve been a double anywhere. Guaranteed. By the time I next get to Cooperstown, Ichiro Suzuki will be there…well, not in person, but as a bronze bust and a member of the class of ’25. The bust will be accompanied by Ichiro’s entire collection of memorabilia.
There are many stories told about the first Japanese player to be enshrined, a unanimous choice but for one voter who was either a fraud or on a 20-year hiking trip through the Himalayas without WiFi. When Ichiro landed in America, he left a homeland where he was bigger than Elvis, who isn’t in Cooperstown but who — like Ichiro — is universally known by a single name, the one his parents gave him.
Ichiro’s on-field stories are legendary because that’s what happens with baseball legends. In 2001, he was Most Valuable Player in his Rookie-of-the-Year season, a record he shares with only Boston’s Fred Lynn (1975). He still holds the major-league record for hits in one season (262), and the closest post-World War II player, 20 hits back, is…Ichiro Suzuki. He’s one of 32 players with 3,000 hits, and the other 31 all had at least a three-year head start. Ichiro was 27 and played until three weeks after his 45th birthday. Disciplined, eccentric and wildly superstitious, he acquired or was blessed with all baseball’s five tools — hit, run, field, throw and hit with power.
While he rarely speaks it, Ichiro reportedly is fluent in English, especially when showcasing his major-league sense of humour. One sample: Before the celebrated 27-year-old rookie’s arrival in Seattle, the Mariners’ chef spent a summer perfecting Japanese cooking. On Ichiro’s first day, the chef had both a fridge full of sushi and the knowledge to prepare it. The first time they met, Ichiro asked (in English): “Do you have a cheeseburger?”
Midway through his 12th season, the Mariners traded the 38-year-old outfield star to the New York Yankees, for two forgettable pitchers. Free agency took Ichiro to Miami and back to Seattle, for the last nine of his 3,089 hits. He’ll go back again this summer to see his number 51 retired, at the age of 51.
Following his record-breaking rookie season, as reported on mlb.com, the people at Cooperstown asked if they could have the bat he used to break the rookie hit record. Always eccentric about his equipment, Ichiro declined. A year later, he visited the Hall of Fame and, after seeing how baseball’s tools of the trade were treated with great respect, promised to donate whatever Cooperstown requested. In the end, that became his entire personal memorabilia collection.
Only Hank Aaron and Tom Seaver had ever done that, so now there are three players in — or with — the same class.
