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, the dominant contact hitter whose 19 years in the major leagues, mostly with the Seattle Mariners, became the first Asian player elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.

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.