Ichiro Suzuki returned to Japan to play professional baseball — perhaps for the last time. He joined the Mariners when they played a two-game series at Tokyo Dome.
It's hard to put into words what Ichiro meant to American baseball. Not just the skills of his generation, but also an aura around him—an elegance and magic he played with every day. This is completely unparalleled. Just say his name to anyone — fan or non-fan — and you'll get an "Ah, yes, Ichiro" with a knowing nod and smile. #mlb棒球创造营 #
This reputation began in Japan, the first 27 years of life in the Future Hall of Fame. Here are five stories from the early days of his baseball career that you may never have heard of.
He strengthens his body by throwing car tires and hitting balls with shovels.
- Although his diet was very rich in Kobe beef sashimi, Ichiro was even smaller in high school than he is now: 5 feet 9,120 pounds. To gain physical and mental strength, his coach Go Nakamura had the team train between 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Have dinner together every night and then start hitting practice at 9 a.m. It's a more nervous team. The maneuvers involved hit Vivre balls with heavy shovels and throwing car tires – an unconventional way of developing players' wrists and arms. It was "the hardest thing I've ever experienced," Ichiro says, but, as we've seen years later, it pays off:
- When he was a kid, he handled 93 miles of pitching with ease.
Most adults will never be able to hit a fastball of 93 mph. Ichiro did this regularly as a teenager. Here's what Robert White reported. The book "The Meaning of Ichiro":
At first, when Ichiro was in third grade, the speed of the [bowling machine] was set to 65 miles per hour, and he was easy to handle, whether it was a fastball, a curved ball or a shotto (a kind of screw ball), a different pitch that the machine could set. For three years, he was hitting the ball at 75 miles per hour, but it also became too easy, so the head coach... Increase the speed to 80 miles per hour. Finally, when Ichiro was 15 years old, the administrator would move the machine itself a few feet closer to the batter's box, which effectively created a 93 mph asphalt.... His most frequented customers even mastered this.
In 536 high school baseball games, he hit .502 with 211 hits and 10 three-pointers.
Yes, it's high school, but 10 of the 536 hits or 10 hits? Meiden, the school he attended, claimed that Ichiro was connected 97 percent of all the pitches he swung. He also had that typical Ichiro calmness, scoring 91 points in one game. The Japanese University-accredited BrainWave Test studies the ability of athletes to handle stress in situations of high stress. His peers scored an average of 60 points.
All-Star pitcher
Like many professional players, Ichiro was a star pitcher in high school, leading his team to the Japan National Baseball Championship twice. But unlike other pros, he also pitched in a professional All-Star game:
The 22-year-old competed in the final of the 1996 Japan Midsummer Classic, where he reached a speed of 90 miles per hour and was happy for everyone who had the privilege of playing. Nearly 20 years later, he would be happy to put the mound with the marlin again.
A 500-foot home run in Hawaii made him a superstar.
For eight years, there was a short life. The Hawaii Winter League is a professional player from Japan, South Korea and the United States. The team's name is great – from the Honolulu Sharks to the Wakhi Beach Boys. Aaron Boone, Jemayne Day and Jason Jamby are just some of the league's alumni. But by far the most famous former player is Ichiro Suzuki, who played for the Hilo Star in 1993 at the age of 19. Look at little Ich Run.
Not only could he run, but he could also strike with strength — apparently playing a 500-foot monster ball that season. It is known as the Shinkansen Homer and is named after Japan's 200-mile-per-hour bullet train.
A few months later, in the third season of the Pacific League's Euryx Blue Wave, Ichiro became Ichiro. The outfielder set a new Japanese record with 210 hits and was cut down in the .385/.445/.549 mark. It will be the start of seven consecutive JPL strike titles, seven consecutive gold medals and three MVPs — he will go on to receive honors after signing with the Seattle Mariners in 2001.