Ichiro donates 3,000th hit souvenirs to Hall of Fame
MIAMI - The president of the Baseball Hall of Fame was the grateful recipient Monday as Ichiro Suzuki handed over his gear - a jersey, a pair of cleats, his arm guard and batting gloves, all items he wore while becoming the 30th player to reach 3,000 hits.
When the exchange concluded, the two men bowed to each other, a fitting gesture to celebrate the bridge from Japan to Cooperstown.
Suzuki began building that bridge when he came to the major leagues as a 27-year-old rookie in 2001. Three-thousand hits later, he's a memorabilia-making machine.
The Suzuki collection at the Hall of Fame numbered more than two dozen items even before his triple Sunday at Colorado, which made him the first Japanese player to reach 3,000 hits. When he and his teammates returned to Marlins Park to begin a homestand, Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson was there to collect additional Suzuki souvenirs.
''Jeff asked me about the stuff,'' Suzuki said through an interpreter. ''I was happy to give it to him. I have an agreement with Jeff that when I die, all of my stuff is going to go to Jeff and the Hall of Fame.''
(Courtesy: MLB.com)
Suzuki, a baseball history buff, has visited Cooperstown six times.
''There is no current player I've encountered who has as deep an appreciation of baseball history as Ichiro,'' Idelson said. ''This is a guy who understands his place in history. Because of that, as a sport and as a country, we're all the richer.''
While Major League Baseball celebrated Suzuki's achievement, it was even bigger news back home. Several dozen reporters and photographers from Japan had been logging lots of air miles following their nation's most famous athlete as he approached the milestone and then went into a slump.
With the triple in Denver - only his second hit in 17 at-bats since July 29 - he said his overriding emotion was relief that so many of his countrymen would be reunited with their families.
''For the last couple of weeks there have been a lot of members of the media following me,'' Suzuki said. ''I'm just so happy they can go back to their homes now.''