NEW YORK (AP) — Used to leading off, Ichiro Suzuki got antsy when he had to wait.
Considered a no-doubt pick for baseball’s Hall of Fame and possibly the second unanimous selection, he waited by the phone for the expected call Tuesday. Fifteen minutes passed without a ring.
“I actually started getting kind of nervous,” he said through a translator. “I was actually relieved when I first got the call.”
Suzuki became the first Japanese player chosen for the Hall, falling one vote shy of unanimous when he was elected along with CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.
Quite the journey for a 27-year-old who left the Pacific League’s Orix BlueWave in November 2000 to sign with Seattle as the first Japanese position player in Major League Baseball.
“I don’t think anybody in this whole world thought that I would be a Hall of Famer,” he said. “As a baseball player, this is definitely the top of the top.”
Suzuki received 393 of 394 votes (99.7%) from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Sabathia was on 342 ballots (86.8%) and Wagner on 325 (82.5%), which was 29 votes more than the 296 needed for the required 75%.
Sabathia and Suzuki were elected in their first appearance on the ballot, while Wagner made it on his 10th and final try. The trio will be inducted into the Hall at Cooperstown on July 27 along with Dave Parker and Dick Allen, voted in last month by the classic era committee.
Mariano Rivera remained the only player to get 100% of the vote from the BBWAA, appearing on all 425 ballots in 2019. Derek Jeter was chosen on 395 of 396 in 2020.
Seattle’s Space Needle was lit blue in honor of Suzuki, who joined Fred Lynn in 1975 as the only players to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. The Mariners announced plans to retire Suzuki’s No. 51 on Aug. 9.
Suzuki was a two-time AL batting champion and 10-time All-Star and Gold Glove outfielder, hitting .311 with 117 homers, 780 RBIs and 509 stolen bases with Seattle (2001-12, 2018-19), the New York Yankees (2012-14) and Miami (2015-17).
He is perhaps the best contact hitter ever, with 1,278 hits in Nippon Professional Baseball and 3,089 in MLB, including a season-record 262 in 2004. His combined total of 4,367 exceeds Pete Rose’s MLB record of 4,256.
In his role as a Mariners special assistant, he still gets dressed in baseball clothes for home workouts as an example for today’s players.
“I want to be able to show the players how I did it,” he said. “Also in the offseason I go to a few high schools in Japan and I want to be able to show them what a professional baseball player looks like.”
Sabathia, second to Suzuki in 2001 AL Rookie of the Year voting, was a six-time All-Star who won the 2007 AL Cy Young Award and a World Series title in 2009. He went 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA and 3,093 strikeouts, third among left-handers behind Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton, during 19 seasons with Cleveland (2001-08), Milwaukee (2008) and the New York Yankees (2009-19).
Sabathia prefers to have a Yankees cap on his Cooperstown plaque — the decision is made by the Hall.
“The Yankees is the place that wanted me,” he said. “I found a home in the Bronx and I don’t think I’ll ever leave this city.”
Sabathia almost retired after the Game 7 loss to Houston in the 2017 AL Championship Series but was persuaded to keep playing when MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds explained how close his statistics were to Hall level.
After adopting a cutter to compensate for diminished velocity, Sabathia won 37 games in his final four seasons.
“I turned myself into my version of Jamie Moyer, is what I felt like: backdoor sliders, changeups, cutters on your hands, two-seamers off the plate,” he said. “I fought it for a long time. When you’re a guy that is throwing 94, 95 (mph) your whole life, it’s hard to buy in.”
Wagner was five votes shy last year. He got only 10.5% support in his first appearance in 2016, and 10.2% the following year.
“It’s not been an easy 10 years to sit here and swallow a lot of things that you have to swallow,” Wagner said. “I didn’t blow a save for 10 years, so I felt that might have had an input on being able to get in.”
A natural right-hander, Wagner switched to throwing left-handed after breaking his right arm playing football as a 7-year-old, then breaking it again. His son Will, a 26-year-old infielder, made his big league debut with Toronto last August.
Wagner became the ninth pitcher in the Hall who was primarily a reliever after Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith and Rivera. Wagner is the only left-hander among them.
“It means a lot,” he said.
A seven-time All-Star, Wagner was 47-40 with a 2.31 ERA and 422 saves for Houston (1995-2003), Philadelphia (2004-05), the New York Mets (2006-09), Boston (2009) and Atlanta (2010). His 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings are the most among pitchers with at least 900 innings, though his 903 career innings are the fewest among Hall of Famers.
Carlos Beltrán fell 19 votes short at 70.3%, up from 57.1% last year and 46.5% in 2023 in his first ballot appearance. He was followed by Andruw Jones with 261 for 66.2%, an increase from 61.6% last year and 7.3% when he first appeared in 2018.
Jones has two more chances on the BBWAA ballot.
Chase Utley was sixth with 157 votes for 39.8%, an increase from 28.8% in his first appearance.
Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramírez have lagged in voting, hurt by suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez received 37.1% in his fourth appearance, up from 34.8%, and Ramírez got 34.3% in his ninth, an increase from 32.5%.
Andy Pettitte got 110 votes and 27.9% in his seventh appearance, doubling from 13.5% last year. Félix Hernández received 81 votes and 20.6% in his first ballot.
Players comprise 278 of 351 elected Hall of Famers, including 142 on the BBWAA ballot, of which 62 were elected in their first year of eligibility.
Carlos González, Curtis Granderson, Adam Jones, Ian Kinsler, Russell Martin, Brian McCann, Hanley Ramírez, Fernando Rodney, Troy Tulowitzki and Ben Zobrist will be dropped from future ballots after receiving less than 5%.
Cole Hamels, Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp join the ballot next year.
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