Budd Bailey - Ichiro Suzuki: A League of His Own

Ichiros unusual batting stance has become familiar to millions of baseball fans in many countries over the years.

Introduction

Perfect Translation

T he name Ichiro translates from Japanese to English as first son. This may seem a little odd in the case of baseball great Ichiro Suzuki, since he was actually the second son born to the Suzuki family of Kasugai, Japan.

But consider Ichiros baseball career, and first son starts to make more sense. He wasnt the first player to go from Japan to North America, and he wasnt the first to have some great moments after crossing the ocean. But Ichiro was the best Japanese player to join Major League Baseball, breaking stereotypes along the way. Many baseball experts wondered if Japanese players were physically big enough to compete in North America. Ichiro, at five feet eleven inches (1.8 meters) and 170 pounds (77 kilograms), was no giant except when he walked onto the field.

The outfielder broke records with his bat and astonished teammates, opponents, and fans with his throwing arm and foot speed. By the end of the 2016 season, he was considered to be one of the one hundred greatest players in Major League Baseball history. His spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown seems assured when he finally gets around to retiring.

Ichiro has had a very unusual baseball career. He spent several seasons playing in Japans top league and dominated it. He arrived in Seattle in 2001 at the age of twenty-seven to play for the Mariners. There were some who thought the outfielder might struggle against the higher level of competition, but Ichiro quickly destroyed those thoughts. He was one of the best in the game from Day One.

Others had come from Japan to play in North America, with various degrees of success. Its not easy to make that jump. Not in the 1940s and 1950s, who also started their MLB careers late but became stars.

Ichiro was still adding hits to his incredible career total with the Miami Marlins well past the age of forty.

So lets take a look at Ichiros story in detailhow he was a star at a young age, was idolized in Japan, made a highly publicized move to Seattle, instantly played at a Hall of Fame level, and was still a useful player at the age of forty-two, going past a couple of major milestones during the 2016 season.

Putting Ichiros career into perspective, baseball has been played in relatively few countries over the years, and almost all of them were in the Western Hemisphere. For several years, Japan was the games lone outpost across the Pacific Ocean. The relationship between Japanese and American baseball makes Ichiros rise even more interesting, and his story begins with one of the games most legendary figures.