Future Baseball Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki Retires

The Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners opened baseball’s regular season a week or so ahead of everyone else with a two game series in Tokyo. After the series was completed, with the Mariners winning both game, Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki announced his retirement in the country where his baseball career began. Ichiro left the field in the eighth inning of Game 2 for the last time, and received a huge ovation from his countrymen.

 
Ichiro played in Japan from 1992 through the 2000 season, before arriving in the majors with the Mariners to great expectations in 2001 at age 27. He exceeded those expectations in his rookie year, winning both the American League Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards. He led the league in hits (242), stolen bases (56) and batting (.350). He had more than 200 hits seven times, including a major league record 262 in 2004, when he won his second batting title with a .372 average.

In July of 2012, Ichiro was traded to the New York Yankees, where he played through the 2014 season. In 2015, he signed as a free agent with the Marlins, and was in Miami through the 2017 season. The Mariners brought him back in 2018, but was injured most of the year, hitting just .205 in 15 games. Perhaps because they were to open the 2019 season in Japan, the Mariners brought him back one more time. But at age 45, time had finally caught up with Ichiro, and he did not have a good spring training. It was widely anticipated he would retire after the series in Japan, and he has.

Ichiro retires with 3089 major league hits, 1420 runs scored, 509 stolen bases, and a .311 lifetime batting average. He had 1278 hits and hit .353 in nine seasons in the Japanese league. He will be a sure fire 1st ballot Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible in 2025.