Ichiro Suzuki’s last major league games most likely will be played for the Seattle Mariners at the Tokyo Dome against the Oakland A’s when the teams open the season March 20-21.
The left-handed hitter simply known as Ichiro had hoped his illustrious baseball career wouldn’t end there. But a source told Boomskie on Baseball on Saturday that it’s highly unlikely the 45-year-old outfielder will make the 25-man roster when the Mariners begin the regular season in earnest against the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox at Seattle on March 28.
There’s a possibility Ichiro could have his farewell in Seattle at what's now called T-Mobile Park in exhibition games against the San Diego Padres March 25-26.
Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto declined to comment about Ichiro’s career beyond Tokyo.
“We’ll talk about that when there’s more to discuss,” he said Saturday as Ichiro worked out for the first time this spring with the full contingent of Mariners at the Peoria Sport Complex. “We stay open to everything.”
The decision to carry Ichiro so he can end his 18-year Major League career during those two games in his home country is a no-brainer.The rosters for those games expand from 25 to 28 men.
“If he’s healthy, we’ll take him to Tokyo,” Dipoto said. “We’ll likely play him in those games, but what that is we’ll have to determine when we get there. And then we’ll access where we go from there.”
Dipoto said that suiting up Ichiro is not written into Major League Baseball's deal to open the season in Japan.
"No, not at all," Dipoto said. "This is purely an in-house thing that we'd like to do. It's the right thing to do in paying tribute to Ichiro and his career. "
Making the 25-man roster for the remainder of the 162-game regular season is a huge leap.
Ichiro said Saturday through his longtime interpreter Allen Turner that he's not looking that far ahead. He'll play in Cactus League games this spring so Dipoto can determine if he's in game condition.
"A 45-year-old baseball player really shouldn't be thinking about the future," Ichiro said. "It's about today. I'm very satisfied with today and how it went. I'm just going to take it day by day and we'll get to that point where it does come. But right now, I'm just taking it day by day."
Ichiro was signed by the Mariners last March 7 after the club was beset by a series of training camp injuries to their outfielders.
He began his career in Seattle in 2001, coming over from the Orix Blue Wave in Japan’s Pacific League and lasted there until mid 2012 when he was traded to the New York Yankees.
Along the way, he enjoyed 10 consecutive seasons of 200 hits or more, breaking the Major League record with 262 in 2004. During that period, he smacked 2,533 of his 3,089 Major League hits playing for the Mariners.
Ichiro, desperate for a big-league job, returned after five-plus seasons playing for the Yankees and Miami Marlins, but his tenure lasted less than two months.
He pulled a right calf muscle early in his spring tour and never rounded into shape. He was released on May 3 with nine singles in 44 at bats, his .205 batting average far below his lifetime mark of .311.
In deference to him, Dipoto allowed Ichiro to travel and workout with the team for the remainder of the season. His ability to do that, plus the talk about him playing in Japan gave Ichiro motivation, he said.
"Oh yeah, we've discussed this throughout, since the time he came into camp a year ago," Dipoto said. "Whether he was working as a consultant or otherwise, we had always discussed him playing in Japan as a fun thing to do. Ichiro is always in good shape. We have to figure out where he is as far as game preparation is concerned."
Adding his 1,278 hits in nine seasons playing for the Blue Wave, Ichiro has amassed 4,367 hits and a Hall of Fame career on two continents.
His No. 51 was worn in Seattle previously by Hall of Fame left-hander Randy Johnson, who won 130 of his 303 games for the Mariners.
Ichiro is a certain first ballot Hall of Famer and that number will be retired by the Mariners for the two greats sometime in the distant future.
The problem is, according to National Baseball Hall of Fame rules, even if Ichiro is available for only those two Tokyo games this season, he will be kicking his eligibility another year down the road.
A player is not eligible for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot until he’s retired for five years. That would mean Ichiro won’t be eligible until 2025 at the earliest.
Asked if he believes that the Mariners will be the last big-league uniform he'll ever wear, regardless of the circumstance, Ichiro said simply:
"Yes, I do."
But right now, even those two games in Tokyo are not guaranteed.
