Tag: Ichiro

Ichiro Suzuki will become a Hall of Famer — and possibly the second unanimous selection ever — when the Baseball Writers’ Association of America reveals its ballots Tuesday night. Ichiro’s stat line over more than two decades of excellence, first in Japan and then in MLB, makes his induction a slam dunk, but the legend of Ichiro is about much more than his 3,089 major league hits and .311 career average during 19 seasons with the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees and Miami Marlins.

As the iconic outfielder gets his Cooperstown call, we asked former teammates, opponents and other MLB greats to describe what it was like playing with, pitching to and simply witnessing Ichiro during his legendary career.

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First impressions of Ichiro

When Ichiro came to the majors, there was plenty of skepticism about how a Japanese hitter would fare in MLB since nobody had made the jump. Starting with his Mariners teammates, he found ways to turn heads from the beginning.

John Olerud, teammate with Mariners, 2001 to 2004: “I heard Bobby [Valentine] talking about this one guy that was really good and that he could play here in the big leagues. Ichiro was the first Japanese position player to come, so nobody knew if they could have success here at Major League Baseball. And so I remember the first time I met him in the clubhouse with Seattle, he knew who I was and I didn’t immediately know who he was. And talking to Tom Robson, who’s the hitting coach, he said Ichiro is bigger than Elvis in Japan, just to give me a frame of reference. And still, as big as he was in Japan, there was still a question of whether position players could compete over here.”

Mike Cameron, teammate with Mariners, 2001 to 2003: “My favorite story was his first year in spring training. Our manager was Lou Piniella. Ichiro was hitting foul balls over the third-base dugout and over the third baseman and he would get a lot of his base hits between first and second, short and third and over the shortstop’s head. And one day Lou got pissed off. He was standing on the top step, and Ichiro was coming back to the dugout. I think he had grounded out or something like that. And Lou always rattled out anything he wanted to say, and was talking so loud — I’m sure Ichiro heard it — he’s asking our bench coach, ‘Can this guy f—ing pull the ball one time?’ And sure enough, the next at-bat, he got up there, he hit a homer to right.

“He came around the bases with no animation or anything, same dry face that he always has with his shades on, then he takes his helmet off, takes his gloves off, puts his bat in his bat rack, his personal bat rack that was on the bench, and he sat down and he said, ‘How was that?’

“And everybody just died laughing.”

Bret Boone, teammate with Mariners, 2001 to 2005: “We had no idea how to take him at first. I now had a teammate with his first name on his back. No one had ever seen that before. He had his own program and BP and things, and everybody knew his credentials in Japan but had no idea how it was going to translate. And he kind of went through spring training like a pro. Guys were asking him to do this and do that. And he kind of looked at you like, ‘No, I know what I’m doing.’ And he had an OK spring, still everybody’s waiting to see what he was going to do and came out of the chute, bang. And that was that first season — it was pretty awesome. He gave me rice balls every day. He was great and really fit into that dynamic. I mean, it was a strange year for all of us because the Japanese press was here and it was almost like having a postseason press conference every day.”

Chef Jeremy Bryant began a 20-plus-year stint with the Mariners in 1999, when what’s now called T-Mobile Park opened. He was told a year in advance that Ichiro would be joining the team, with a staff member referring to him as “the Michael Jordan of Japan,” and so Bryant spent a summer learning Japanese cooking. When Ichiro arrived, Bryant was ready — his fridge stocked with gourmet Japanese food, his mind prepped for how to make it to the superstar’s liking. Then, Ichiro walked into the room with a question Bryant was not expecting.

“Do you have cheeseburger?”

Bryant: “I didn’t have a cheeseburger. I didn’t even think he would want that. I was suggesting all these things and I’m like, ‘How ’bout wings?’ He goes, ‘Oh yeah, wings! Very good.’ I had started marinating them Mexican style. I put some lime juice, garlic, and before I went too far, I put a bunch of teriyaki sauce on them, and so I joked with him, like, ‘These are my signature Mexi-yaki wings.’ He went out, had his Opening Day, everything went good. And the next day he was like ‘Wings, again, please.’ I left the stadium to buy some more wings, came back, made them again, and then Day 3, again. I swear to God, man — 10 years, he had those wings. Every game that we played at night, Ichiro had those wings. … Same time — 5:05 every day because he was the first one out of batting practice. He ate them in the same exact chair. He never sat in a different place in our little dining lounge. And he used the same plate. I even cooked them in the same pan. … And then on getaway days, whenever the team was flying out, he didn’t want wings on those days. He wanted two corn dogs. Just two, and they had to be the basic, regular — I would get them at Costco, the frozen ones. I had all this gourmet stuff ready for this guy, and he loved two corn dogs on getaway days.”

Even as he quickly turned his teammates — and team staffers — into believers, Ichiro had to prove himself to the rest of the league. Of course, batting .350 on his way to American League MVP and Rookie of the Year honors in 2001 helped matters immensely.

Tim Salmon, opponent with Angels, 2001 to 2006: “I remember seeing him for the first time and how slight of build he was. He wasn’t a big guy. My thought was, ‘OK, this will be interesting to see how this plays out.’ He’s a right fielder. Most right fielders are big guys, power guys.

“He was such a slight build but had all this amazing talent, and he could be whatever he wanted to be. And his arm, I mean, he was just phenomenal. He had a cannon in the outfield and just the gracefulness that he went about things, whether he was charging the ball and his footwork and being able to get off that perfect throw every time or running the bases. He just glided, and he just did everything with a gracefulness. That was really rare to see.”

Joe Maddon, longtime opposing manager with Rays and Cubs (and bench coach for Angels in 2001): “I really believe that he could look at the field and decide where he wanted to hit the ball and then he would hit it in a manner that would fall in front of outfielders. Although he had pop in his bat, he knew how to just hit it over infielders — almost like his bat was a fungo — and as if the pitcher was just tossing it up in the air and he would hit it somewhere; it was just really maddening to defend it.”

Mike Sweeney played with and against Ichiro for many years in the American League. They also shared an All-Star locker room several times. Sweeney remembers the first time he met Ichiro — while Sweeney was playing first base for the Royals in 2001.

Sweeney: “He leads off the game with a line drive to left-center field for a base hit and he gets over to first base, and all I could think about was when I was in Japan playing against the Japanese all-stars, anytime that an American would get a base hit up on the jumbotron would be this big huge graphic, almost kind of like a 1950s/1960s graphic from Batman and Robin. Like ‘Pow!’ or ‘Boom!’ And it would say, ‘Nice batting.’ And so over the loudspeaker, you’d hear the PA announcer say, ‘Nice batting.’ And you’d see these big graphics up on the jumbotron.

“So being a kid from Southern California that doesn’t speak any Japanese, I don’t know what to say to Ichiro. I don’t even know if he knows English. He had just gotten here in spring training. So I look over at him and I pat him on the back and say, ‘Ichiro, nice batting.’ And I don’t know what kind of response I’m going to get. And he looks at me — never met him before — and he goes, ‘Mike Sweeney, nice ass.’ I just started dying laughing. I’m like, oh my gosh, his English was perfect. No accent. And I’m going, oh my gosh, this guy, he’s going to be great.”

With a major league career spanning nearly two decades, Ichiro ended it playing with the same players who were watching him in awe from afar when he broke in with the Mariners.

Chris Rusin, Rockies pitcher who gave up Ichiro’s 3,000th hit: “I watched him growing up. I went to a couple of Tigers games, and they just happened to be playing Seattle. Never thought I’d be playing against him or pitching against him, let alone giving up the 3,000th hit.”

Christian Yelich, teammate with Marlins, 2015 to 2017: “I grew up watching Ichiro as a kid. In middle school, high school and stuff like that. So when we first signed him, I was like, ‘Oh s—, I’m going to be playing with Ichiro. That’s crazy.’ And you don’t have very many moments like that — at least, I didn’t in the big leagues — where you’re playing catch with a guy in the outfield and you’re kind of like, ‘Oh s—, I’m playing catch with Ichiro right now.’ That’s a weird feeling. And he was so normal too, though. He was a great teammate and a good friend, and it was an awesome experience playing with him and getting to watch him achieve a bunch of milestones because it was later in his career, so it felt like every game he was passing or tying somebody.”

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A front-row seat to the Ichiro show

Randy Winn played 115 games batting one spot behind Ichiro in 2004, when he set an MLB single-season record with 262 hits. Winn referred to his spot in the order as a “pleasure” because he benefited from how much energy Ichiro absorbed from opposing pitchers, either during long at-bats or consistently applying pressure on the bases.

Winn: “He had three 50-hit months. I’m fortunate enough to have one in my career, and it felt like I fell out of bed every day with two hits in my pocket. It was amazing. I’m serious. You went to the park every day like, ‘Oh, I already got two hits? Wow, this game is easy.’ He did it three times in one year! I can’t even fathom. That to me is so mind-blowing, I can’t even put it into words.”

When Winn arrived in Seattle in 2003, he worried about a potential language barrier while sharing the outfield with Ichiro. Winn quickly learned it was a nonissue — Ichiro spoke far more fluent English than he had realized. Winn was intent on giving Ichiro his space, but he often sought opportunities to pick the brains of great players. One spring, he saw an opening with Ichiro. The two stayed back while most of the other veterans traveled for a Cactus League game, and Winn approached Ichiro in the weight room to ask him about his mindset leading off games.

“Randy,” Ichiro replied, “I want five.”

“What?” Winn responded.

“Five,” Ichiro said in perfect English. “Every day, I want five hits.”

“That’s the expectation,” Winn said. “‘I put myself in a position where I expect to get five hits. I expect to execute and get five hits.’ And then I was like, ‘Heh, OK, now I understand why you get 262 hits.’”

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Unforgettable moments

Long after the initial frenzy of his arrival in 2001, Ichiro captivated the sport again as a 42-year-old in pursuit of his 3,000th hit in the majors (in addition to the 1,278 he collected in Japan). He reached the milestone while playing for the Marlins in 2016 — hitting a stand-up triple at Coors Field in Colorado.

Rusin: “The atmosphere, it was crazy. You could kind of feel the crowd was expecting something because for a Miami-Colorado game to have quite a few fans there, and it got pretty loud when he gets up to the box. You kind of could feel it a little bit.

“I think I went 2-and-0 on him and then I left a cutter over the middle of the plate. He kind of pulled off of it, hit off the end of the bat, and it traveled further than I thought it was going to go, and the outfielder kept going and going and going. I was like, ‘Please don’t go out. Just not a home run. I’ll take anything but a home run.’ And it went off the wall and he ended up getting a triple, and I think I ended up getting out of the inning. But yeah, anytime you faced a hitter like that in a big situation where he has something on the line or whatever, you don’t want to be a part of it, but as long as it’s not too bad, it’s OK. It’s not too bad to be a part of it.

“Then after the game, I’m sitting at my locker and I got all the media around me wanting to talk about giving up that hit, and I explained everything and then at the end I said, ‘The only thing that I asked for is you go back and ask him for an autographed bat. By the time he leaves, just send it over.’ And by the time I left the stadium, he had already sent the bat over and signed it. Great guy.”

Yelich: “After he got it, we were in the outfield together playing catch the next half inning, warming up for the bottom of whatever against the Rockies at Coors Field. And I remember playing catch with him and me thinking, ‘Don’t you dare throw this ball over Ichiro’s head and have him go running to the wall to go get this ball or something.’ With all these cameras and people watching him right now, all over the world, you just don’t want to airmail it in the outfield and send him running. That’s what I remember thinking.”

It wasn’t just milestones but also Ichiro’s ability to make any moment extraordinary. There’s perhaps no better example than his unreal April 2001 throw from right field to get A’s outfielder Terrence Long out at third base.

Long: “When he threw me out at third, early in the year we were in Seattle, same scenario, ball hit to right field, but it was a little bit more towards the gap, and I went first to third, no problem. So this time I’m thinking, ‘OK, I went first to third one time before,’ but this one was right at him. And I watched the replay. I was already three or four steps across second before he got it. So I’m thinking, there’s no way he’s throwing me out, and I’m running, and then you can look at the third baseman’s eyes and you can see him looking at this ball. And I’m saying to myself, I’m like, ‘OK, this ball is about to pass me.’ So I was like, two things are going to happen. Either way it goes, you’re going to be on ESPN forever. So the smart thing to do is just slide, just to make it look close. The worst thing I could have done was just go in, stand it up, and it would’ve been even more embarrassing. So I was like, ‘I’m just going to slide.’ But as soon as I got ready to slide, you see this ball come right past me. I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s no way he just made that throw.’”

Even routine plays became the stuff of legend when Ichiro stepped onto the field.

Salmon: “We were playing in Seattle one year, and the grass always has a dew on it, a dampness to it. Anyway, he hit a line drive at me. This is along the lines of how hard he hit the ball. They just rocketed off his bat. And it was just going to be a nice easy one-hopper. And I came up to get it, and it hit the ground and it skipped so hard. I didn’t get my glove down in time, and it hit me in the nuts. And literally, I did everything I could to keep from rolling over or whatever. I mean, I picked up the ball and I threw it in and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ And I was walking around the outfield and I swear it was burning so bad down there. I figured I must be bleeding. And I kept trying to glance down looking at it like, ‘Am I bleeding?’

“I’m 200 feet away. That ball, it hit the ground and it just had so much on it. It looked like a normal line drive, one-hop routine, and it skipped on me — but he hits the ball so hard that you really got to be on your toes. And I remember hearing infielders talk about that. He’d hit a hard one- or two-hopper that would just get through, past the infielder, because the ball came off that different.”

Joe Girardi, manager with Yankees, 2012 to 2014: “My favorite Ichiro story is actually when he played with the Mariners against us. I remember him taking Mariano Rivera deep [a walk-off] in a game, throwing the cutter inside and it getting hit. He had the ability to pull his hands inside and hit the ball out of the ballpark. And when you would watch him take BP, he hit ball after ball after ball out. But he knew his game was getting on base and stealing bases. So he never tried to be something that he wasn’t. The ground that he covered was incredible and people just didn’t run on him, or he probably would’ve had a lot more assists. And it’s a guy that had over 500 stolen bases. So I don’t know if he could really ask a player to do much more.”

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Legendary skills and work ethic

None of his achievements would have been possible without a combination of baseball skills and work ethic that set Ichiro apart from his contemporaries.

Cameron: “He was a locker mate of mine and he was my right fielder for the three years that we played together. What jumps out is just his consistency. His consistency and his work ethic. He calls it a word in Japanese: it’s called kaizen, and in Japanese that means never-ending [or continuous improvement]. So he was never satisfied. And I don’t think he really worked off the numbers other than the fact that he loved the idea of getting base hits. The guy was driven about getting base hits, and obviously that’s evident in that he came over here and played all those years and got 3,000-something hits and has the all-time hit record in a season. So he was driven by that, although he had the capability of hitting the homer, which I don’t think everyone really knew that.

“The guy used to go in even on off days and work out. It was every day for him. That’s all he knew. I always used to ask him, ‘What drives you to do this kind of stuff?’ He’s like, first of all, his name means ‘the one.’ So he’s destined to be this one person. And he was also very particular about everything that he did, from his bats to having his own special bat case with a humidifier there. He was a competitor.”

Mark Teixeira, teammate with Yankees, 2012 to 2014: “I got to see Ichiro at his best. There were only a handful of players in baseball that I thought were more impactful to the game. I just thought he was one of the top five players in all of baseball when I played against him.

“What impressed me the most is that he worked harder, took his job more seriously than anybody I’ve ever played with. And this is a guy who was a Hall of Famer, a legend in Japan. He could have just kind of ridden off into the sunset. He wasn’t even playing every day, but yet, he took his craft more seriously than anybody.”

Girardi: “I think his durability was absolutely incredible. Coming over here at 27 years old and playing really every day until he was 41. It was amazing. I’m looking at his stats when he was 41 years old. He appeared in 153 games, and he worked really hard. There’s really three facets of the game, and he was really good at all of them. Offensively, just his bat-to-ball skills were absolutely incredible and [he] had the ability to hit a home run — in a sense — when the team needed it.”

Beyond all of his other gifts, it was that unparalleled ability to put the bat on the ball that stands out most to those who watched Ichiro — or attempted to get him out.

Mark Buehrle, longtime opponent with White Sox, Marlins, Blue Jays (Ichiro hit .409 in 66 career at-bats against him): “He was so good with making contact and just putting the ball where he wanted to. I remember a game — I think he had all the hits during that game — he got on first base after his third hit, and I had run over to cover. It was like a base hit through the right side of the infield. And I went over to cover and he was standing on first base, and I just threw my arms up. ‘Are you s—ting me?’ And he just did his whole, ‘My bad,’ shrugging his shoulders. But he was just so good at putting the ball where he wanted to. I swear he would put it where guys were not at.

“I think the only time that I ever moved any position guys on the infield was against him. There was a game, he got two hits between third and shortstop. And I remember the third at-bat. I looked over at [third baseman Joe] Crede and I’m like, ‘Scoot over, he hits the ball right there every time, scoot over.’ So I pointed [him to] move over towards the shortstop and what’s Ichiro do? He hits it right down the freaking line, right where Crede would’ve been at. And I’m like, ‘Yep, I’m never moving anybody ever again.’”

Those who have witnessed his batting practice over the years swear there is another element to Ichiro’s game that defies his modest 119 career home runs.

Long: “He just hits, hits, hits — but what impressed me the most about that guy was batting practice. His first couple of rounds, he is just working on his line drives, and then his last round of BP, he hits balls further than anybody I’ve ever seen. And still to this day, people don’t believe it. I’ve watched him take BP a lot. He hits balls farther than any of the big guys you can name in that era in batting practice.”

Olerud: “You watch him take batting practice and I would put him against any home run hitter in Major League Baseball because he just hit one home run ball after the other and way, way out. It was impressive how far he could hit the ball home-run-wise and then get in the game and he’d go to slapping the ball the other way and running hard out of the box. It was just so different. And so for me, it was always, ‘Hey, you practice like you play in the game.’ And I never really asked Ichiro what his thinking was in batting practice, but he kind of blew that theory out of the water.”

Bob Melvin’s first managing job was in 2003 with the Mariners. Ichiro was a megastar in the United States by that point, yet Melvin called him the easiest player he ever coached. He was so committed, so regimented, that Melvin often joked that his only job was to inform Ichiro what time the game started. But when Melvin first came on board, he was given a different task — to schedule days off for Ichiro as often as he could. Ichiro never wanted to take them, but he often needed them. So Melvin identified an early date on the calendar that, in his mind, made sense — Saturday, May 3, in the middle of a weekend series against the White Sox.

Melvin informed Ichiro earlier that week that he would not be in the starting lineup for that game and reminded him the day prior. He told him not to take batting practice and to make it a point to arrive at the ballpark later than he normally would. If he needed him, Melvin said, it wouldn’t be until the eighth or ninth inning anyway. Then Melvin walked into the dugout half an hour before the first pitch and saw Ichiro sitting on the bench in full uniform — batting gloves on, bat to his side, one of his knees twitching uncontrollably.

“I’m ready,” Ichiro declared.

Melvin: “Just then, this kid walked by with an Ichiro jersey on. And he looked at me and he just kind of nodded his head to the kid. And it just dawned on me that people come to watch him play, and he’s very aware of it. And he’s an entertainer, as well. And he wants to put on a show. And here we are in Chicago, the only time that year playing the White Sox, he’s not in there, and it was almost his way of telling me, ‘That’s one of the reasons I don’t want days off.’ I just looked at him and I said, ‘I get it.’”

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One-of-a-kind personality

Two things were clear about Ichiro’s off-field persona: He was really into fashion, and his comedic timing was impeccable.

Those two traits collided one afternoon in the mid-2000s. Kangaroo court was being held, and one of the Mariners’ players proposed fining Ichiro $500 for wearing another one of his eccentric, fashion-forward, Italian-inspired outfits that seemed more appropriate for a European runway than a major league clubhouse.

Raul Ibanez, teammate with Mariners, 2004 to 2008, and Yankees, 2012: “So Ichiro stands up very calmly and starts speaking very eloquent Japanese in a calm, very distinguished cadence. And then the translator goes, ‘Ichiro-san wants to know how much we’re going to fine you for making him watch all the s— that you guys wear every day.’ It was sometime in September, I think everyone on the 40-man roster was there, and the whole room erupted.”

When Ichiro returned to Seattle as a 44-year-old in 2018, it was Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto who orchestrated the deal with longtime agent John Boggs in early March, in the middle of spring training. But Dipoto had never met Ichiro.

A news conference was scheduled at the Mariners’ facility in Peoria, Arizona. Dipoto and Boggs agreed that the front office people could wear polos and khakis and Ichiro would probably conduct his news conference in his baseball uniform. So, a casual affair. Then that morning, a row of black SUVs pulled into the parking lot. Ichiro hopped out of one of them.

Dipoto: “I’d be conservative in saying I think he’s wearing about a $20,000 suit, his hair perfectly groomed and jet black, and he’s got on what I would qualify as the nicest pair of sunglasses I’ve ever seen. He walks in and spreads his arms out and says, ‘Jerry!’ I looked at him, and my first instinct, I like, give him a little backhand slap in the chest. I said, ‘I thought we were going casual.’ And he looked at me and laughed. He said, ‘This is casual for me, my friend!’”

Ichiro’s ability to surprise with his style and wit was evident from the beginning — whether it was with an umpire …

Boone: “One of my favorite moments was: He’s running out for Opening Day and the second-base umpire [Kerwin Danley] was kind of following him out to right field, and everybody thought [Ichiro] didn’t speak English. And I believe the line he dropped on him because Danley came right over to me and he said, ‘I can’t believe what Ichiro just said to me.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said he was running by Ichiro and he kind of gave him the, ‘Hey, good luck to you’ this and that kind of thing. And Ichiro kind of looked at him, he said, ‘What’s happening, home slice?’ and kept running to right field. That stuck with me. That was funny. That’s how he was.”

… or when he charmed the game’s greatest players at his first All-Star Game in 2001.

Sweeney: “[AL manager] Joe Torre gives this beautiful speech, you know, ‘You guys are the best in the world in this locker room. Take a look around. You’re in an elite class. There’s only 70 people in the world that are going to play in this game tonight, and you’re one of them.’ And you look around, you see Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and you’re looking around the room going, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great.’ So at the very end, we’re all kind of in this feeling of you’re in a cathedral, but yet you’re in a baseball locker room at the same time, and you’re going, where do we go from here? And Joe Torre says, ‘Anybody have anything to add?’ And we’re kind of like, how can you top Joe Torre? And we look around and Ichiro stands up, raises his hand — where’s he going with this? And he goes, ‘Let’s go kick their motherf—ing ass.’ And the place just erupted, the whole locker room.

“It was something I’ll never forget. So then every year in the All-Star Games to follow, it just was like, OK, whoever the manager is, you can say whatever you want, but No. 51 always gets the last word. And it was just an unspoken thing — you look over and you see Jeter, the greatest players of our time. And when the manager would get done, it was like, OK, that was good, but wait until you hear what Ichiro has to say. He gets the last word.”

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It wasn’t always easy

Sweeney’s first year playing with Ichiro was in 2009, just after Ichiro had led Japan to a World Baseball Classic title. It came with a lot of stress — amid reports of issues between Ichiro and some of his Seattle teammates and a bleeding ulcer.

Sweeney: “I had heard about Ichiro being alienated by his teammates. Some of them were jealous of him, some of them weren’t incorporating him into the team as they should. And I was in shock. I’m like, this guy’s the greatest hitter of all time. How can you not embrace this incredible player? So we go into spring training, Ichiro is in the corner locker right next to Griffey Jr. Then I’m next to Junior and I’m sitting around the locker room looking and saying, man, we have four future Hall of Famers in this locker room. It’s Ichiro, Griffey Jr., Adrian Beltre and Felix Hernandez. And I’m going, man, how can we not win here? We have to find a way to unify this locker room.

“So during spring training, we did little things to bring our team together. We’d meet up for dinners and do fun things in the locker room together. And about halfway through spring training, the WBC started. So Ichiro was obviously on Team Japan and they win, and Ichiro shows back up with five days to go before Opening Day in Minnesota. And he goes to our team doctor and says, ‘Look, I don’t feel good at all.’ So they find out he has a bleeding ulcer and he’s deathly ill. They’re treating him in the hospital. But Ichiro was bound and determined to be ready for Opening Day. But the stress of putting his country on his back; he literally put the country of Japan on his back by representing them in the WBC. He willed the Japanese team to win the WBC championship in 2009, and then he tries to get back to a team that just six months before had turned their back on him and kind of ostracized him and put him on an island. They didn’t embrace him.

“And he has all this internal stress going on, which leads to a bleeding ulcer. And Ichiro met with the doc and said, ‘I’m playing for Opening Day.’ And the doctor actually called the owner and said, ‘Ichiro’s adamant that he wants to play for Opening Day, which is in like four days, and I’m in no position as a team physician to allow that to happen.’ Ichiro asked him what’s the worst thing that could happen. And the doc says, ‘If this bleeding ulcer, which is actively bleeding, if it ruptures, you could die.’ And Ichiro looked him square in the eyes and said, ‘I’ll take my chances.’ And the owner of the team had to step in.

“So as we went into Minnesota — Ken Griffey Jr, myself, Adrian Beltre, Felix Hernandez — we got the team together, and we said, ‘Hey, look, in the past, this is a teammate that you all have pushed to the side, but here’s what he was willing to do for you. He’s willing to die for you to play in tonight’s game.’ So it was very emotional. This is a time to honor him. This is a time to open up our arms to him and really bring him into the team. So that night in Minnesota, our clubhouse manager, Teddy Walsh, we asked for Ichiro’s jersey, and we hung it in the dugout, in the Metrodome. And Ichiro told me that when he watched the game that night from a hospital bed back in Seattle, he knew that there was something different. He had teammates, for the first time since his rookie year, he felt, that loved him.

“So the team ended up just falling just short of the playoffs. On the last day of the season, we carry Griffey off on our shoulders thinking he was going to retire and sail off into the sunset. Carlos Silva [a Mariners pitcher, who reportedly had his issues with Ichiro] was so moved by his love for Ichiro, he thinks what the hell, I’m going to put Ichiro on [my] shoulders and carry him off.

“There’s this beautiful image of us carrying Griffey Jr. off the field as a hero’s exodus, and then Carlos Silva throwing Ichiro up on his shoulders, carrying him off just because he loves his teammate. And Ichiro told me that that was the most fun he had in the major leagues since his rookie year. He said the way his teammates loved him, the way his teammates celebrated him brought him great joy again in baseball for the first time since his rookie year.”