Shohei Ohtani instantly became a force to be reckoned with during his 2018 rookie season in the MLB. He played in 104 games that season, hitting .285/.361/.564 with 22 home runs and 61 runs batted in.

Only great Yankees All World reliever, Mariano Rivera, was unanimously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That’s it. Nobody else. Both Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner received 95.13% of the vote when they were elected to the Hall.

TOKYO — Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he’s much more than that in Japan. Back home, he’s a wellspring of national pride, much like Shohei Ohtani now. His triumphs across the Pacific buoyed the nation as Japan’s economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Ichiro Suzuki could have been immortalized as a first-ballot Hall of Famer nearly a decade ago. He was last a full-time starter in 2012, at 38. He logged his 3,000th hit in 2016, when he was 42. Still, he made us wait three more years to celebrate his retirement.

Global baseball's hit king Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese-born player elected to Major League baseball's Hall of Fame on Tuesday, just one vote shy of unanimous selection.

Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese player chosen for baseball’s Hall of Fame, falling one vote shy of unanimous.

The baseball world was left delighted on Ichiro's induction into Cooperstown. But who opted to keep him off their ballot and deny him the glory of being a unanimous choice?

Just imagine this—you open a fresh pack of Topps baseball cards, but what if those are autographed cards? The post “Shaking for 24 Hrs”: Shohei Ohtani’s Rare Triple Autographed Card With Japanese Icons Startles Fan appeared first on EssentiallySports.

Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2025. The final results were unveiled Tuesday

Yankees legend Hideki Matsui played seven seasons for the Yankees. It wasn’t until his final one, in 2009, with the addition of lefty ace CC Sabathia, that he managed to get that elusive World Series ring.

It’s tempting to say Ichiro Suzuki, with his detached sense of cool, record-breaking hitting prowess and 28 seasons of excellence on both sides of the globe, was made for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Probably more accurate to say the Hall of Fame was made for him.