Baseball-Ichiro, from 27-year-old rookie to 3,000-hit club

By Larry Fine
Reuters

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The remarkable Ichiro Suzuki, who blazed a trail for Japanese players in Major League Baseball with high-average hitting, dazzling speed and a rifle throwing arm, underlined his Hall of Fame credentials by joining the 3,000-hit club on Sunday.

The first MLB position player from Japan to play regular in the majors, the superb outfielder known simply as Ichiro on Sunday reserved his place in Cooperstown when he became the 30th major leaguer to reach the milestone.

He accomplished the feat with a triple to right field for the Miami Marlins in the seventh inning against the Colorado Rockies in Denver.

Already a member of Japanese baseball's Hall of Fame (The Golden Players Club) after nine seasons, Ichiro carved out a second Hall of Fame career on the major league stage over the next 16 campaigns.

Arriving from the Orix Blue Wave of the Pacific League in Nippon Professional Baseball as a 27-year-old major league rookie with the Seattle Mariners, Ichiro wasted no time showing that his talent and determination translated on MLB diamonds.

The slender Ichiro, with an unorthodox high leg kick to time his swing in the batter's box, turned routine ground balls into short infield singles with his speed down the line and made baserunners cautious with his strong arm in right field.

Ichiro announced himself with an electric 2001 season in which he hit .350 to win the batting title with a rookie record 242 hits while swiping a league-leading 56 bases in sweeping Rookie of the Year and American League MVP honors.

The batting title/stolen base double had last been achieved in 1949 by fabled trailblazer Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier as MLB's first African American player.

Ichiro, who had won seven batting titles in a row and three straight Pacific League MVP awards in Japan, was just getting warmed up in the majors.

MODEL OF CONSISTENCY

Following a strict daily practice routine and stretching regimen, Ichiro was a model of high level consistency.

He went on to post a record 10 consecutive seasons of at least 200 hits, reaching his zenith in 2004 when he stroked 262 hits to break an 84-year-old major league record set by George Sisler as he claimed another batting title with a .372 average.

Including his 1,278 hits for Orix in Japan, the claim has been made that with his major league hits total, Ichiro has surpassed Pete Rose, who is MLB's career hits leader with 4,256.

Rose, who has been an admirer of Ichiro's, bristled at that suggestion, saying the Japanese stats could not be counted equally with a major league total.

Regardless, there is no disputing the enormous achievements of Ichiro, who is still playing at age 42 and has said he believes he can play until age 50.

The Japanese phenomenon proved his abilities despite starting his MLB journey at the advanced age of 27.

Most members of the 3,000 hit club began their MLB careers around age 21, with the latest bloomer among them before Ichiro being Wade Boggs, who was 24 in his rookie season and went on to amass 3,010 hits.

Derek Jeter, a teammate of Ichiro's when the Japanese outfielder played with the New York Yankees from 2012 to 2014 and who stands sixth on the all-time major league hit list on 3,465, praised him on reaching the milestone.

"It's an incredible accomplishment. When you add in his 1,278 hits from Japan, where he played until he was 26, his career will be counted as one of the best of this or any other generation," Jeter said in a posting on The Players' Tribune.

"My hat's off to Ichiro. He's a guy who comes around once in a lifetime. No one's ever seen anybody like him. And to be quite honest, we probably won't see anybody like him again." (Editing by Mark Lamport-Stokes)

08/07/2016 20:05