One of the great MLB careers has come to an end.
On Thursday in Tokyo, Ichiro Suzuki retired from baseball after an exhibition game between the Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s. Icihro, who was born in Japan and started his professional baseball career with the country’s Orix Blue Wave, went 0-4 but was still able to hang’em up on a high note after Seattle managed to come away with a 5-4 W in his final appearance. And this is where the ‘strange coincidence’ comes into play.
It was nearly 18 years ago that the 45-year-old began his MLB career, and as MLB writer Sarah Langs pointed out, it also happened to be a 5-4 win… against the Oakland A’s. Kind of weird… no?
Let’s put this into perspective for a moment. Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi AND Jeremy Giambi were all in the lineup for the A’s while Edgar Martinez, Bret Boone and Dan Wilson were in with Ichiro for the Mariners. Edgar Martinez was just inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame…
Back to Ichiro’s final game. As you could expect, he received an enormous applause following the win. He exited the field to a roar of cheers before taking it one last time for a final curtain call. The footage captured of him walking the field was just unreal.
It’s only fitting that we include one last Ichiro highlight before he begins enjoying retirement. Just the other day he threw an absolute rope from right field to third to hold runners on second and first on bag. The man is 45!!!!
Wowza.
From 2001-2018, Ichiro compiled 3,089 hits, 1,420 runs and 509 stolen bases. Imagine if he played his whole career in North America!
(H/T Sarah Langs)
