Still marveling at this from Friday. Ichiro combines bat control and strategy (aiming for shortest part of park) to make up for his age and lack of size. You can’t understand how difficult this is until you see current all-stars struggle to do the same.
Watching Ichiro hit bombs in an alumni derby is funny until you remember he could always do this.
He just refused to.
In 2007, Bob Nightengale asked Ichiro how many home runs he could hit if he actually tried to swing for power.
His answer: "If I'm allowed to hit .220, I could probably hit 40, but nobody wants that."
He was averaging about 10 a year at the time.
And the wild part is that everyone around him backed it up.
Ichiro's batting practice sessions were legendary for two decades. Teammates would stop what they were doing to watch him launch balls into upper decks. Then the game would start and he'd go back to slapping singles the other way and beating out infield hits.
In 2018, when he wasn't even on the active roster anymore, Mariners manager Scott Servais publicly campaigned to get him into the actual MLB Home Run Derby. His argument was simple. Ichiro takes BP every single day and he is launching balls, and it's the most fun thing in the building to watch.
Ichiro's response to his own manager nominating him?
"I didn't know the skipper told jokes, but I guess he does."
He had the power. He never wanted the trade.
Because here's what choosing singles actually bought him.
262 hits in 2004, breaking a record that had stood for 84 years.
Ten straight seasons of 200 or more hits, which nobody in the history of baseball had ever done.
Seven hit titles. Two batting titles. 3,089 hits in MLB.
And 4,367 hits as a professional across Japan and America. More than any player who has ever lived.
He wasn't hiding power. He was spending it.
Every swing he shortened, every ball he served into left field instead of trying to pull, was a deliberate trade. Fewer homers, more hits, for twenty straight years.
And he never stopped being able to do the other thing.
In 2023, at FIFTY years old, Ichiro was demonstrating technique for high school kids in Hokkaido and hit a 426 foot home run that smashed through a classroom window. His face afterward, worried he was about to get in trouble, is one of the great sports videos on the internet.
Fair counterpoint, and people have made it for years: if he really could hit 40, maybe he would have.
But it's the only career in baseball history where that argument is even possible.
He gave up the highlight so he could own the record book.
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