Ichiro Suzuki

Since 1996, the ‘Ichiro Cup,’ a boys' league tournament named after Ichiro, is held in his hometown and its surrounding areas. Over 200 teams participate in this six-month event. Ichiro serves as its chairman and remains present at the last game and the awards ceremony every year.

On December 3, 1999, he married Yumiko Fukushima in Santa Monica, California. Yumiko worked as a ‘TBS TV’ announcer. They do not have any children.

His father runs the Ichiro exhibition room named "I-fain" in Toyoyama, since November 2000. This exhibition room displays a varied range of his memorabilia.

He was born on October 22, 1973, in Aichi, Japan, to Nobuyuki and Yoshie Suzuki. He became part of a junior baseball team at the age of seven and would often practice with his father. At the age of 12, he was determined to become a professional baseball player, and with this, his training sessions with his dad became more stringent and uncompromising.

He studied at the ‘Aikodai Meiden High School,’ in Nagoya, Japan. The school had a prestigious baseball program. His remarkably strong arm led him to predominantly play as a pitcher, rather than an outfielder, in his high school team. While in high school, he garnered a cumulative batting average of .505 with 19 home runs.

Unfortunately, his small built and light frame overshadowed his impressive high school numbers while being considered by teams. This saw him being drafted only in the fourth and the final round of the November 1991 professional draft.

He made his ‘NPB’ debut with one of the two six-team circuits of the ‘NPB,’ the ‘Pacific League’ (PL), on July 11, 1992, for the ‘Orix BlueWave.’ His first few seasons were mostly spent in the farm system, as Shōzō Doi, the then-manager, disapproved of his unconventional swing that was nicknamed “pendulum.”

With the arrival of the new manager, Akira Ōgi, in 1994, Ichiro got the opportunity to play in the second spot of the line-up every day. He made his first ‘NPB All-Star Game’ appearance that year and continued for the next six years, till 2000.

He garnered 210 hits in a 130-game season, thereby emerging as the first player to top 200 hits in a single season and setting a Japanese single-season record. He also set a new ‘PL’ record with his batting average of .385 that won him the first of his seven consecutive ‘PL’ batting champion titles (1994–2000) in 1994. He garnered the ‘NPB Most Valuable Player’ (MVP) award for three years in a row, starting from 1994.

Eventually, this ace baseball player earned the reputation of being the “Hit Manufacturing Machine.” Other ‘NPB’ accomplishments of Ichiro include seven ‘Golden Glove’ awards (1994–2000), seven ‘Best Nine’ awards (1994–2000), three ‘Matsutaro Shoriki’ awards (1994–1995, 2004), and three ‘Japan Professional Sports Grand Prize’ wins (1994–1995, 2001).

His ‘NPB’ statistics stand at a batting average of .353, 1,278 hits, 118 home runs, 529 runs batted in, 658 runs, and 199 stolen bases. He participated in an exhibition series during the 1996 season, against a visiting team of ‘Major League All-Stars.’ It was during this time that he developed a passion to play in ‘MLB’ in the US.