Last night was the announcement of Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2025 class, with all the votes tallied and eligible players needing 75% or more of their names checked off to earn the honour. The ERAs committees have already elected Dick Allen and Dave Parker are into the Hall of Fame and last night, three more players joined them as part of the 2025 class: CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, and Ichiro Suzuki. Wagner was in his tenth and final year of eligibility while Sabathia and Ichiro were on the ballot for the first time.

Of the group, the name that sticks out the most is Ichiro, who has cemented himself as one of the most impressive baseball players in the game – not just through Major League Baseball but also through his time in Japan with Nippon Professional Baseball as well. Considering the group entering Cooperstown is voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America credentialed folk, there will always be some weird decisions and awkward ballots. While not every ballot is made public, some choose to show off their choices on social media beforehand, with fans of the sport ripping decisions apart and fighting online about why certain players were added, left off, etc.

In this particular case, there is likely a writer who wants to keep their ballot hidden for a long time. A very, long time.

There has only been one player who has unanimously received every single vote from the BBWAA into Cooperstown and that was Mariano Rivera, whose name was checked off on all 425 ballots issued during his first year of eligibility in 2019. Ichiro seemed like a candidate to join Rivera in that prestigious 100% club but one person decided to ruin the party, with the outfielder receiving 393 votes from the 394 ballots. He fell one vote short of the honour, a similar fate that fell on Derek Jeter in 2020 (396 of 397 ballots).

Ichiro not only made a strong case for the Hall of Fame but also the unanimous push as well. After nine seasons in the NPB with the Orix Blue Wave (now the Buffaloes) that saw him earn seven All-Star nominations and a Japan Series Championship (1996), Ichiro made the jump from Japan to Major League Baseball in 2001, signing with the Seattle Mariners on a three-year deal worth $14 million after Seattle’s bid of ~$13 million to negotiate with him through the previous posting system between the two leagues was accepted.

What followed next was a 19-year career stint in the big leagues that saw Ichiro cement himself as one of the best Japanese position players to ever step foot on a Major League diamond.

He earned the AL MVP and the Rookie of the Year Award in his debut campaign, with the 27-year-old posting a .350/.381/.457 slash line with a league-leading 242 hits and a 7.7 bWAR at the top of the Mariners lineup. That started a ten-year All-Star run that saw him rack up 10 Gold Glove Awards, three Silver Sluggers, and set the record for the most hits in a single season with 262 knocks in 2004. He earned two batting titles throughout his career and led the Major Leagues in hits on seven different occasions, posting a batting average of +.300 on 12 different occasions through a single season. Using his unique swing from the left side of the batter’s box, Ichiro was able to make contact with the ball and quickly hustle his way down to first, with the ability to put the ball anywhere he wanted on the diamond with his approach.

In the outfield, Ichiro was a master of the right-field corner, posting a .983 fielding percentage and a 104 DRS with 100 outfield assists. He also spent some time in the other outfield spots – 322 games in centre field and 117 games in left field – but right field was his home, with the Japanese product showcasing his rocket of an arm on numerous occasions.

His career was spent mostly with the Mariners, from 2001 to 2012 before a quick stint from 2018 and early 2019 to round out his career. Outside of Seattle, he split his time with the New York Yankees following a trade during the 2012 season (2012 to 2014) and the Miami Marlins (2015 to 2017). While his numbers started to fade as he got up in age (he played until he was 45), Ichiro finished his career with a 60.0 bWAR, a .311/.355/.402 slash line, 10734 plate appearances, 3089 hits, 117 home runs, 780 RBIs, and 509 stolen bases with a .757 OPS. His numbers would have been even higher had he made the jump to the big leagues earlier in his career but it wasn’t permissible under the posting system at the time.

With last night’s news, Ichiro now adds another accolade to his hardware cabinet – one that is presumably very large to fit the many accomplishments of his career that spanned 20+ years in two different leagues. He was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame this month and entered the Mariners Hall of Fame in 2002, with Seattle also announcing yesterday that they were going to retire his #51. He became the first Japanese-born player to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame and almost the first position player to earn a unanimous selection into Cooperstown, with one vote leaving him shy of the honour.

While we may never know the journalist who left the outfielder off his or her ballot, Ichiro enters the Hall of Fame after an illustrious career on the diamond and will be honoured later this summer in Cooperstown alongside his fellow inductees.