Ichirō Suzuki (baseball player)

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Ichirō Suzuki
Ichiro Suzuki on April 9, 2017 (cropped) .jpg
Right fielder
Born: October 22, 1973
Toyoyama , JapanJapanJapan 
Strikes: Left Throws: Right
Debut in Major League Baseball
April 2,  2001  with the  Seattle Mariners
Last MLB assignment
March 21,  2019  at the Seattle Mariners
MLB statistics
(until end of career)
Batting average    , 311
Hits    3,089
Runs    1.420
Runs Batted In    780
Stolen Bases    509
Home runs    117
Teams

Awards

Last update: April 22nd, 2019

Ichirō Suzuki ( Japanese 鈴木 一 朗 , Suzuki Ichirō , mostly only known as Ichirō ; born October 22, 1973 in Toyoyama , Aichi Prefecture , Japan ) is a former Japanese baseball player in Major League Baseball (MLB) on the position of outfielders . Ichirō was the first Japanese to establish himself as a regular on a field position in the MLB.

From his first season Ichirō was one of the strongest players in the MLB. So far he has won a Gold Glove in each of his ten years in Seattle and played for the All-Star Team . In addition, he was awarded a Silver Slugger award in 2001, 2007 and 2009 . In the 2004 season Ichirō set a new record for hits (262) in one season.

youth

Ichirō started playing baseball at the age of seven. He asked his father Nobuyuki Suzuki to teach him in order to become a better player. The two trained daily, with Ichirō throwing 50 pitches and acting as a batsman in 200 pitches of his father. Ichirō also got 50 infield and 50 outfield balls, which he defended. At the end he hit 250 to 300 balls from a throwing machine.

As a youth player, Ichirō had the word shūchū (concentration) written on his glove. At the age of 12, he finally set himself the goal of becoming a professional baseball player, and from then on shared his father's vision. Nobuyuki once said, "Baseball was fun for both of us," but Ichirō later said, "It might have been fun for him, but for me it was more like Star of the Giants ". Star of the Giants is a popular Japanese manga and anime series that tells the story of a boy's difficult path to becoming a professional baseball player. The boy's father demands rigorous training from him. Ichirō once said about training with his father: "It bordered on humiliation and I suffered."

When Ichirō joined the high school baseball team, his father told the coach, “No matter how good Ichirō is, you should never praise him. We need to make him spiritually strong. ”When Ichirō was in high school, he was selected by a school with a prestigious baseball history. Ichirō was not used as an outfielder, but as a pitcher because of his strong limb .

In his high school career Ichirō brought it to a batting average of .505 and 19  home runs . Components of the very tough training methods included throwing car tires or hitting balls with a heavy shovel. These methods strengthened his wrists and hips and increased the strength and stamina of the rather slender Ichirō.

In the draft of the Japanese professional league, Ichirō was only "drawn" in the fourth and last round, as the teams considered him too small (180 cm) and too light (54 kg) to play professional baseball.

Career in Japan

Ichirō made his debut in the Pacific League in 1992 at the age of 18, but played mostly on a farm team for the first two years , as the manager did not accept Ichirō's unorthodox swing style. Ichirō's swing, nicknamed "Pendulum" (Eng .: pendulum), is in principle incompatible with the conventional swing. Ichirō makes a "pendulum-like" movement of his foot and puts his weight forward during the swing. Typically, when you swing, you want your weight to rest on your back leg to hit the ball effectively.

In the 1994 season, a manager change favored Ichirōs career. He was brought into the extended roster of BlueWave . He was also allowed to swing the way he wanted. He thanked the manager with a Japanese season record of 210 hits in 130 games. His batting average of 0.385 also earned him the first of seven consecutive titles in these statistics. He also got 13 home runs and stole 29 bases, earning him the first of three appointments to MVP in the Pacific League.

In the 1994 season, the player began using "Ichiro" instead of "Suzuki" as a name on his jersey. This was because Suzuki is the second most common surname in Japan. This made Ichirō want to stand out from the crowd. This was welcomed by the management, who saw him as an aspiring player with star potential and wanted to convey a certain image and individuality. Although Ichirō did not really like this tactic of the weak team, he stuck to the label and was soon overwhelmed by requests for autographs.

In the 1995 season Ichirō led the Blue Wave to their first Pacific League title in twelve years. In addition to his second title in the batting average, there were also first places in the statistics RBI (80), home runs (25) and stolen bases (49). At that time, the Japanese press began to refer to him as "The Human Striking Machine". In 1996 Ichirō received the third consecutive MVP award. The team defeated the Central League champion, the Yomiuri Giants , in the Nihon Series .

In 2000, Ichirō was still a year away from being eligible as a free agent . But the BlueWave were no longer one of the best teams in Japan and could no longer afford the star. In order not to have to let him go without a transfer a year later, they allowed him to take up talks with Major League Baseball teams . Ichirō used the so-called posting system , an agreement between the MLB and the Japanese professional league, which was introduced to save the Japanese teams from having to let their young talents move to America without financial compensation. The Seattle Mariners won the "auction" with a bid of approximately $ 13 million. Ichirō then signed a three-year contract in Seattle with a volume of 14 million US dollars and became the first Japanese outfield player in MLB history.

In his nine years in Japan, Ichirō averaged .353 and won seven Gold Gloves.

Major League Baseball career

2001-2003

Ichirō Suzuki

On November 9, 2000 Ichirō received a contract with the Seattle Mariners with a volume of about 14 million US dollars. The media interest in Ichirō was overwhelming as he was the first Japanese to make the leap as an outfield player in the MLB. So far, only pitchers from Japan have been active in the professional league. Similar reviews to the one at the draft in Japan came up in America. It was doubted that Ichirō's stature would be enough to assert himself. In addition, 162 games are played every season in the MLB, significantly more than in Japan. Ichirō made an impressive debut in the game against Oakland Athletics , especially on the defensive .

Ichirō played an outstanding rookie season in 2001. He brought it to 242 hits, breaking a record from 1930. He also led the league with a batting average of 0.350 and 56 stolen bases. He also got two great series of hit games: one with 15 and one with 23 games. It got on the cover of Sports Illustrated and conjured up a media storm in both the US and Japan.

The Mariners broke new records in ticket sales and Japanese baseball fans booked $ 2,000 in trips to the Seattle Games. More than 150 Japanese reporters and photographers obtained accreditation and the sushi Ichirolls was sold at the stadium .

With the help of Major League Baseball, which allowed the All-Star voting in Japan, Ichirō was the first rookie to receive more votes than any other MLB professional. At the end of the season Ichirō was voted Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year in the American League. This made him only the second player after Fred Lynn to receive both awards in his first MLB season. Some sports journalists, however, criticized that Ichirō had the "rookie status" because he brought a lot of experience from the Japanese professional league. This is an unfair advantage over the players who came from the minor league team.

In 2002 and 2003 Ichirō was able to confirm the very good performance. He had over 200 hits each time, was elected to the All-Star Team and won a Gold Glove Award in both years .

2004: Ichirō's record hunt

In the 2004 season Ichirō was able to set various records in Major League Baseball:

  • August 26: With a double against the Kansas City Royals , Ichirō became the first player to score 200 hits in each of his first four years.
  • August 28: Ichirō became the first player in MLB history to score 50 hits for three months in a row.
  • August 31: Ichirō ended August with 56 hits, most since 1938. At that time, Jeff Heath had 58 hits.
  • September 17: Ichirō made his 199th single of the season. With that he beat the record of Lloyd Waner , who managed 198 in 1927.
  • September 22: Ichirō broke Harry Heilmann's 79-year-old record in the Hits on the Road category after scoring his 135th hit.
  • October 1: Ichirō made hits 258 and 259, breaking George Sisler's record that had existed since 1920. He also broke the hit record in a period of four years with a total of 919 hits.
  • October 3: Ichirō ended the season with 262 hits. He was also the first in the batting average with .372. His 225 singles of the season broke Willie Keeler's all-time record from 1898. Ichirō also narrowly missed Willie Wilson's record of most at bats . Ichirō hit the strike 704 times, Wilson's record is 706.

2005-2006

In the 2005 season Ichirō managed to achieve more than 200 hits in one season for the fifth time in a row. He was the first player to do this in his first five years as a professional. In addition, only five other players managed to achieve over 200 hits in five consecutive seasons, namely Willie Keeler , Wade Boggs , Chuck Klein , Al Simmons and Charlie Gehringer . He also hit 15 home runs this season, which was a new personal record.

The start of the 2006 season was rather weak for Ichirō's standards. In April, for example, he only had a batting average of .200. In the course of the season he then increased steadily and ended the season with a batting average of .322, which earned him sixth place in the American League and eleventh place in the MLB. He also managed 224 hits (number one in the MLB), 110 runs and 45 stolen bases.

The fans voted Ichirō into the All-Star Team of the American League. This was the sixth participation in the sixth professional year in America. In the six participations Ichirō was five times in the starting lineup. Only in 2005 did he start as a substitute. Ichirō also won the Gold Glove Award for the sixth time .

2010

In the 2010 season Ichirō succeeded as the first player in the MLB to expand his series of seasons with at least 200 hits to now 10 seasons. Pete Rose achieved 10 seasons with this performance before, but not as with Ichirō in ten consecutive seasons. For his defensive performance in the outfield, he was awarded a Gold Glove for the tenth time in a row. This puts him in third place in the list of gold gloves won in the outfield, behind Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays , who were each successful twelve times.

Stations

Trivia

  • In January 2006 Ichirō played himself in the television series Furuhata Ninzaburō . His role was that of the murderer.

Web links

Commons : Ichiro Suzuki  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ichiro ties record with 10th 200-hit season. In: MLB.com. September 23, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Ichiro wins 10th straight Gold Glove. In: mlb.mlb.com. MLB.com: News, accessed November 10, 2010 .
personal data
SURNAME Suzuki, Ichirō
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 鈴木 一郎 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese baseball player
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Toyoyama , Aichi Prefecture