The Last At-Bat

I.
I was a senior in college the day that Ichiro stepped up to the plate at Safeco for what might have been his last time.
My dad told me to be ready to leave the house by 8:30 a.m. The day was April 19, Miami Marlins vs. Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field, home of the Mariners. Game time 12:40 p.m. For me, a college student whose earliest class wasn’t until 1 p.m., my being ready to leave the house by 8:30 was something of a gamble on my father’s part. He didn’t have to worry, though. I would be ready.
Even though we had to pick up my aunt on the way to the stadium, leaving at 8:30 for a 12:40 game an hour away didn’t make sense for our family. The last game we had attended at Safeco saw us arriving well into the second inning without a care. Timing was not my family’s strength.
But this time was different.
Marlins vs. Mariners meant that at this game, for the first time since 2014, Ichiro was back at Safeco Field. And this time was likely his last.
II.
Ichiro Suzuki joined the Seattle Mariners in 2001. Before his time in the Major Leagues, he played baseball professionally in Japan, where he was born and where he lived until coming to America to play at age 27.
Ichiro’s father, Nobuyuki Suzuki, trained him to play baseball. Nobuyuki didn’t go easy on Ichiro, drilling into him the concepts of baseball and training him to excel. At seven years old, Ichiro was hitting 200 pitches from Nobuyuki every day, in addition to 250–300 more that were machine pitched. Nobuyuki taught Ichiro to hit left-handed, even though he swung naturally with his right arm. The reason? Left handed batters are closer to first base, giving him an advantage from the get-go. On top of this, his father trained him to start running almost as soon as he swung the bat. All of these techniques were designed for a purpose. Nobuyuki’s training allowed Ichiro to perfect the art of beating infield hits to first. Still to this day — at age 45 — that is part of Ichiro’s hitting strategy. Gunning for the home run is not his motive. Instead he hits singles, singles that he knows he can beat to the bag at first.
In high school, Ichiro already batted at a .502 average. The Orix Blue Wave, a Nippon professional baseball team in Japan, drafted him out of high school. Ichiro recorded 1,278 hits with his Japanese league team. In his third year playing professional ball, he set the Japanese record for most hits in a season with 210 in 130 games. Before ever being a star in America, he was a super star in Japan.
But that success didn’t necessarily translate in America. When the Mariners decided to draft him in 2001, Ichiro became the first position player from Japan to enter the Major Leagues. At the time, many people were skeptical of his small stature — 5’9 and 160 — and doubted whether a player from the Japanese leagues could keep up in the Major Leagues.
Rich Waltz, the current play-by-play announcer for the Marlins who also used to work for the broadcast team is Seattle, explained that, “He carried the weight of Japanese baseball on his shoulders. If he came over as the best player in Japan, and walks into Major League Baseball — there had not been a guy like him to come over — if he failed, if he was an average player, then the whole league over there would’ve been downgraded in the minds of fans, in the minds of players, in the minds of executives.”
Without a doubt, Ichiro had a lot to prove.
III.
In honor of his return, Safeco Field had a Bobblehead event on April 19. They dubbed it “Ichiro Dual Bobble-Head Day.” A fitting term; not only was there two Bobbleheads, but they represented the duel being waged inside all the Seattle fans — Ichiro, our beloved Mariner, returning as a Marlin. We knew he was not one of us anymore. But somehow, that didn’t matter.
The first 20,000 fans at Safeco received a figurine of not one, but two Ichiros, one in his Mariners uniform commemorating his 262-hit season with the Mariners in 2004 and the other in his Marlins uniform, celebrating his 3,000th career hit in 2016.
This was the prize. It was for this cheap, plastic figure that our family left so early. We were not, I repeat not, going to miss out on our chance for an Ichiro dual bobble head. My mom, dad, aunt and I breathed heavily and fidgeted while waiting for traffic to allow us to turn right off the freeway and into the parking garage. My boyfriend, ever the calm headed one, displayed no signs of anxiety. I doubted that the prize really meant all that much to him.
The stadium was littered with people, thousands of people skittering like cockroaches. We were not the only ones who wanted our trophy, and we were beginning to fear we wouldn’t get one. Knots tied up in my stomach. My mom gave a deep sigh.
“We aren’t going to get one. We should have left earlier,” came her biting comment.
“Stop it, Mom. You don’t know that,” I snapped back.
A pause.
“I just…don’t want to get my hopes up,” she replied.
After fighting our way to a parking spot and walking across the street, we found our place in line. All around us were people carrying white boxes. Behold! The treasure. Stadium employees bobbed in and out of the crowds with boxes on moving carts, bringing more to the front of the lines.
“Are there still some left?”
“Did we make it in time?”
“Do we get one?” My mom and I hurled questions at my dad before walking through the metal detectors and seeing him, arms piled high with five white boxes.
“We did it! We have the bobble heads!” We exchanged celebratory high-fives before my dad offered to take the bobble heads back to the car now that we were in possession.
As he returned our precious cargo, the rest of us went off in a search to find our seats. The crowd inside overwhelmed at first, a temporary sucker punch to the gut, like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. We said nothing as we walked up and around, feeling tiny in the frenzy. Fans holding white boxes of their own surrounded us. Merchandise booths displayed signs reading, “Adult Ichiro shirts here,” and the Ichiro’s jersey greeted us at every stand.
“I’m really glad we got a bobble head,” my boyfriend announced. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted one until we had them.” I smiled and grabbed his hand. Apparently the prize meant more to him that I had thought.
Once we found our seats, my boyfriend went off to the bathroom and my mother and aunt went off in search of booze they could bring back to their seats. I had no mission in mind, so I stayed and held down the fort. I was, for the moment, alone in the stadium, surrounded by thousands of fans. Alone while in a crowd. I looked to the field and saw tiny specks — the players — wearing hats with an orange and blue “M.” Not “M” for Mariners, but for Marlins. And though it wasn’t the home team warming up on the field, the crowd was abuzz with the stirring of mystic memory. One of the tiny dots, putting on a glove and walking to the edge of the field with another player and sunglasses hooked on his shirt, not yet in a jersey bearing his number, was Ichiro.

IV.
According to an article by ABC News, when Ichiro arrived for Spring Training in 2001, he began his batting practice by hitting baseballs into the opposite field. What Lou Piniella, manager of the Seattle Mariners at the time, didn’t know was that this was how Ichiro always started out training camp. He did it in order to get a better understanding of the outer edge of the strike zone. After spending $27 million to acquire the 27-year-old rookie, Piniella was getting nervous. He pulled Ichiro aside as told him, “Pull the ball, son.”
Ichiro did as he was told. On his next at-bat, he hit a homer right into the right-field bullpen. Piniella shook his hand in his dugout afterword.
He proved his worth to Piniella, and to the rest of America, during his first year with the Mariners. He was voted both Rookie of the Year and MVP, only the second player in baseball history to have achieved the feat. With Ichiro on board, The Mariners won an American League record 116 games. Ichiro was an unstoppable force, breaking records right and left, including an 84-year-old record for hits in a season with his 258th hit in 2004. He won a Golden Glove ten years straight.
Ichiro didn’t let down his fans in Japan, and he proved himself worthy of all the fans he earned in America.
V.

Ichiro joined the Mariners when I was six years old.
My father loved baseball and had never stopped rooting for his Seattle sports team, even when they disappointed him again and again. Not since 2001 have the Mariners come close to a chance at the World Series, but every year I hear the same thing.
“Rosie,” he’ll say, pointing at me from across the room, “this year is our year. This is the Mariners’ year!”
“I hope so, Dad.” I tell him.
Though he often falls asleep during the games, he always turns them on and does his best to watch them all the way through.
At six years old, I desired play time at all moments of the day. My dad was my constant playmate, my storyteller, but when he was watching the games, I was left to fend for myself. Bored and betrayed, I spent tear-filled afternoons begging him to play Barbies with me or read me a book, which he normally agreed to. But there were clear rules. And one rule was this: when the Mariners were on, Dad wasn’t playing Barbies.
When I couldn’t play with my dad, I watched him watch the Mariners. What enticed him so much about the game? What on Earth could be more important than playing with me?
The answer: Ichiro Suzuki. Games my father watched were accompanied by his tell-tale excitement whenever Ichiro sauntered into the batter’s box.
“There he is, Ichiro up to the plate!” He announced to the house.
“Two strikes, one last chance! Come ON, Ichi!!” he shouted at the TV screen. And then, when his waiting paid off and Ichiro collected another home run like it was nothing at all, my father jumped up from his chair, clapping.
“I-CHI-RO! I-CHI-RO! I-CHI-RO!” echoed throughout our home.
A six-year-old girl notices these things.
By the next year, Ichiro was my favorite Mariner. The fact that I didn’t watch baseball and couldn’t name a single other player didn’t matter. I could tell that he was special. I loved him. I loved him because my father cheered his name.
I wasn’t the only one who felt that there was something special about Ichiro. For all of Seattle, he represented something bigger. Perhaps it was the fact he was a glimmering star we could hold on to in an otherwise dim and depressing sky. For whatever crap people talked about the Mariners, no one said anything bad about Ichiro.
But more than that, Ichiro seemed to belong to us — even though he was from a whole different continent. Seattle has long had a connection with the Asian culture. The Japanese video game company Nintendo is a long time share-holder in the Mariners. It’s Chinatown-International District is not far from Safeco Field. Ichiro fit right in. A New York Times article published in 2001 explained the impact when they wrote, “A commercial in Japanese for Consolidated Restaurants plays on mainstream English-language radio stations in Seattle. A growing number of restaurants are printing menus in kanji. At the Mariners’ team stores, Japanese-speaking employees are always on hand, and №51 is by far the best-selling jersey…nearly a quarter of the press box is given over to Japanese reporters, and sales of Asian foods at the ballpark’s Intentional Wok and Bullpen Bento have increased by 30 percent.” The same article quoted Caroline Chung Simpson, an associate professor of English at the University of Washington, as saying, “I think Ichiro’s appeal to most Asian-Americans I know is firmly tied to his having proven the stereotypes about Asian men wrong…I’m not sure the greater American public knows how hungry some Asian-American men are for positive images of themselves in the larger culture.”
His traditional mannerisms and modesty regarding his talent set him apart from stars like Alex Rodriguez. He spoke almost exclusively through a translator because he wanted to be sure that he got his intended meaning across. He was, somehow, exactly what Seattle needed.
In fifth grade I won a raffle from our school’s book fair and got to pick a poster from the available left-overs to take home. Amidst the dogs and the dolphins and the cats, a lone Ichiro poster lay among the spoils. It hung on my wall until I graduated high school.
VI.
In the most exquisite of coincidences, I was the only one in our section the moment as Ichiro warmed up with his throwing partner Marcell Ozuna, tossing the ball back and forth, gradually increasing the distance each threw. Never a hesitation, never a drop. Ethereal tracks remained in the air from the trajectory of each throw.
All around me, fans were pointing at the man, cameras out to snap a picture of Ichiro, probably for the last time.
It never occurred to me to take a picture. No thoughts of preserving the moment entered my head. I couldn’t look away. The moment itself was all I could focus on, Ichiro on the field, throwing a ball like nothing had changed. Once the hero of Safeco field, his spell was still cast upon the crowd. In that moment, as he threw and caught, threw and caught, it was like he was doing it just for me. He was like an old wind-up toy discovered in a box from childhood, one that surprises you when it still runs, but is exactly how you remember it.
After three years, Ichiro was finally back home. Even though he was on the opposite team, the stadium buzzed while he threw balls back and forth. It seemed the crowd shared a collective thought: This may never happen again.
His throwing practice done, Ichiro tossed the ball into the crowd, nonchalantly, as if that was the intended spot for the ball, as if returning it to its rightful place. Then, after stretching, he walked unceremoniously to the stands and began shaking hands and signing memorabilia.
A whole crowd of Seattle fans flocked for a Marlins player’s signature. At Safeco field that day, no one cared what team Ichiro was on.
VII.
Ichiro is still the all-time Mariners leader in both hits and batting average. It wasn’t until 2012 that he took off his Mariners’ uniform. Traded to the New York Yankees at his own request, his star had dimmed. Ichiro was batting a career-low .261 at the time he left for the Big Apple.
“Ichiro knows that the club is building for the future,” said Mariners CEO Chuck Armstrong said in an interview. “He felt that what was best for the team was to be traded to another club and give our younger players an opportunity to develop.”
Ichiro played with the Yankees until 2015 when he joined the Marlins. On June 15, 2016, Ichiro recorded his 4,2757 professional hit. That number beats the 4,256 hits recorded by Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader, giving Ichiro the most recorded professional hits of all time in baseball. Yet because that number combines his hits both in Japan and in America, the MLB record book doesn’t count it.
Later that same year, Ichiro recorded a milestone the MLB would recognize. On August 7, he recorded his 3,000 major league hit, a number that only 29 players had reached before him.
15 years later, and Ichiro was still breaking records.
VIII.
The game started at 12:40, as promised. My family sat at attention in section 141, row 40, watching, waiting. Felix Hernandez of Safeco field, stood at the rubber against the Marlins’ batters. After one ball, the first batter, Dee Gordon, succeeded in getting a hit off “King Felix” and took his place at first. Less than a kingly start. The second batter, Martin Prado, whacked one to the center to get on first, allowing Gordon to run all the way to third. Murmurs trickled through the crowd. No one wanted to doubt Felix, but a man on third after the second at-bat read poorly in the book.
The third batter, Christian Yelich, stepped up to the plate and hit the first pitch to center, allowing Gordon to run home and putting himself on first and Prado on second. Three pitches, every batter on base, one run. A pall fell over Seattle.
By the bottom of the first, the Marlins had scored two runs, and went through their whole lineup, save one. At the very bottom of the lineup, the only one who hadn’t batted in the first inning, was Ichiro’s name.
The Mariners capitalized on a series of walks and singles to add one run to the board by the second inning, a run by Mitch Haniger off a wild pitch from Edison Volquez. Then, with the inning over and a wave of anticipation rising, Ichiro was next.
“Now up to bat for the Marlins, number 51, Ichiro Suzuki,” announced Tom Hutyler as a familiar face stepped to the plate.
The cheers for Ichiro as his name was called seemed to overpower the noise for Mariners favorites Robinson Canó, Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager, or even the King himself. They were passé. It had been three years since Seattle could cheer for Ichiro.
The crowd stood up in a subtle wave as section by section followed suit. My family rose to pay our respects and watched Ichiro assume his signature pose, his right arm extended straight out as it held the bat to the sky, his left arm crossed across his chest and touching his right shoulder, pinching his shirt and lifting it slightly, sizing up the pitcher. For many years we had watched as he took this stance in a Mariners’ uniform. Seeing him adopt the same pose now, in a Marlins’ uniform, seemingly made no difference to the crowd.
But Felix versus Ichiro? The sight was a mind bender.
King Felix who Seattle fans rocked back and let sail the first pitch. The crowd watched as Ichiro tensed in anticipation, ultimately stopping his swing. All eyes glanced at the big screen to see a “1” materialize under the “Strike” counter.
I sighed.
The next pitch yielded the same result. Two strikes on the board and Ichiro’s first Safeco Field at-bat appearance since 2014 was almost over. Again, Ichiro did not swing at the pitch. This time, a “1” appeared under the “Ball” counter, and anticipation spiked. Then, with a final fling from Felix, Ichiro stepped into the pitch and swung. The ball landed in the catcher’s glove. Three strikes, and Ichiro was out.
After this, the spell had seemingly lifted. The Marlins were the rightful enemy once again and even Ichiro’s presence couldn’t change that. The game felt, for the next seven innings, like any other game since Ichiro’s departure.
The score remained close until, after a scoreless top of the fourth for the Marlins, the Mariners capitalized on a Haniger double and a Seager single for four more runs in the bottom to take the score to 8–3. A homer from the Marlins courtesy of Yelich rendered it an 8–4 game, and there the score would remain until the top of the ninth.
Just like the top of the first, the top of the eight for the Marlins had ended on an at-bat by Miguel Rojas, who holds the special distinction of being right before Ichiro in the Marlins line-up. As the ninth inning began, Ichiro strolled out onto the field. He knew, and we knew, what this at-bat meant. But none of that showed on Ichiro’s face or in his stance. His walk up to the plate here at Safeco field could have been any other walk. Except, it wasn’t.
Just like in the second inning, the crowd rose to their feet.
IX.
He’s now been playing baseball for 25 years. Whatever anyone else may say about his career, Ichiro doesn’t plan to stop soon.
“I want to keep playing until I am at least 50,” Ichiro explained in a 2016 ESPN article. Though age has perhaps dimmed the glimmering star of Seattle, he still feels confident in his abilities.
“How I feel today, and how I felt in 2004 [when Suzuki set the MLB single-season hit record], there is no difference. Obviously, getting 262 hits, and trying to accomplish that in 162 games, was difficult then, and it would be difficult today. You have to have good fortune, and many, many things have to come together in order to do something like that. But if you were to tell me that I would hit leadoff and play every single day, I believe I could get 200 hits now. There is no reason that I can think of that tells me I couldn’t. There is nothing that would stop me from saying yes, I can do it.”
There’s no doubt in Ichiro’s mind that he can still perform at peak level, though he doesn’t have the same certitude about how he has changed the game of baseball.
“I really don’t know what effect I had. But what you can say is that maybe people were only thinking inside a box. Because I was just able to do it kind of freely, do it my way, I believe that box may have been expanded. Maybe they could see that there are other ways.”
Doing it “his way” has always been Ichiro’s style. But what is “his way?”
“The one that is pretty obvious is the hitting style. Before I came [to the U.S.], I would lift my leg up and go forward. Most managers or coaches would stop you from doing that. A big turning point in my career was when I was 19, my second year as a professional. I was up and down, going from the minors to the big leagues. The hitting coach at the time thought my batting style was different from the way he thought it should be. He came to me and said, ‘Are you going to listen to what I tell you to do?’ I told him, ‘No, I am not going to.’ So I got sent down. The following year, the manager allowed me to do it my way. And I broke the all-time hits records in a season. That point is when I knew I had to have the courage to believe in myself, in that what I am doing is right for me.”
Ichiro has changed the game, whether he wants to admit it or not. Since coming to America 16 years ago, he has thoroughly dispelled any ideas that he would not make in the Major Leagues. But the initial disbelief, and the work he put in to disprove it, has taught him a valuable lesson.
“I think, the words that people say, you can’t believe it all. When I first came over to the U.S., a lot of people didn’t think I would last a year. Now, 16 years from that day, people are saying, ‘Oh, 3,000 hits, he’s a future Hall of Famer, this and that.’ So I guess not taking everything in or believing everything-only to really take care of those that are close to you, and don’t worry about the outside [is the lesson I learned].”
X.
At 43 years old, Ichiro is no longer the powerhouse he used to be for the Mariners. In 2009, his all-time high batting average was .352. His batting average in 2016 was .291, and so far in 2017, his batting average is .200. His position at bottom of the batting order is a sharp contrast to the days when he hit leadoff for the Mariners. His age, alongside his wavering show at the plate, raises a question in the minds of baseball fans and players alike: how long until Ichiro retires?
The score at the top of the ninth, 8–4, wasn’t just distant, it was double for one team. Even still, no one made moves to leave. They knew if they waited just a little longer, they might be able to catch Ichiro at bat one more time.
There is no guarantee that this series at Safeco field will be his last, but Mariners fans are aware that there is also no guarantee that Ichiro will ever bat at Safeco field again. This was the thought in the mind of likely every attendee in the stadium, all 27,147 of them, when Ichiro stepped up in the ninth.
After his performance in the game thus far, an early strikeout in the second, an out at second after getting on first base in the 4th after a hit, and a ground out to second in the 6th, I can’t say whether the rest of the crowd expected much, but I was just happy to know that I was there, in Safeco field, surrounded by fans who loved Ichiro as much as I did. The fact that he would likely be unspectacular didn’t matter. I watched Ichiro take his famous stance one more time.
To start the ninth, the Mariners sent Evan Marshall to the mound to face down Ichiro. With Safeco field on its feet, Marshall began his wind up, and his pitch, and then, the slightest “crack” echoed in the park as Ichiro’s bat connected with the ball and he was off running. The ball sailed through the air into right field, a line drive that looked set to go all the way, but only just. The world stopped as all eyes watched the ball. It went further. Further. Until, at last, it cleared the stands. In his last at-bat at Safeco field, possibly ever, Ichiro Suzuki had hit a home run.
Once it was a confirmed homer, he took his time. He slowed his run. I watched as he jogged around the field, stepping on each base, and for a moment, I was six years old again. My father, sitting next to me, chanted “I-CHI-RO, I-CHI-RO!” along with the whole of the stadium. He rounded the bases, his slow gate the only hint that this home run meant something different to him than all the other ones before. He waved to the audience as the cheered, and shook the hands of his teammates.
I thought, I’m not going to cry for this.
I thought, Oh, but yet, here are the tears.
In Safeco Field on April 19, 2017, as Ichiro rounded the bases to collect his home-run victory, I felt the tears force their way out of my eyes. There could be no stopping them.
Why was I crying?
For the six year old girl, now about to graduate college.
For my father, so long a believer in the player, who took us all to go see him play one last time.
For a legend who, with every game, comes closer and closer to his final game.
For everything that had changed.
For so much that had not.
