Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki makes it big in the majors; Mariners star right fielder continued to impress in his second season in the show - Hitting Machine

Bob Finnigan

WHEN ICHIRO STEPS INTO THE BATTER'S box, no one--the pitcher, the shortstop, the fans, even his teammates--has any idea what he is planning.

"It's kind of funny," said Mariners teammate Edgar Martinez, a man with an eye for fine hitting. "We still don't know what Ichiro is going to do when he's at the plate. But this time, it's a different kind of not knowing."

At the start of the 2001 season, there was worry, with the wondering, about the new Mariner coming to another level of the game.

On Opening Day last April, 242 hits later, followed by postseason performance in which he collected 16 hits in 38 at-bats (.421), it was no longer a matter of "if" Ichiro will hit, but when, where, how and how far.

The last may be the matter of most conjecture. Some point to Ichiro's first and second years in Japan when he showed he could hit (.385 in 1994 when he won the MVP) and hammer (25 homers in 1995).

He may be the Madonna of baseball, reinventing himself periodically to keep people guessing.

Mariners manager Lou Piniella said he thinks on the low side of Ichiro's longball abilities, suggesting 8-12 homers, "and that's plenty." But the common guesstimate is for at least twice the eight he hit in 2001.

"He was pulling the ball a lot more last spring," an American League scout said. "He knows the pitchers now, and they don't know him much better than they did last year. He just missed a number of pitches last year, and he wasn't missing them this year.

"I watch him as close as possible and I wind up like everyone else. I'm curious to seeing what he does. I only wish he did it for my team."

Even Piniella noted, "Ichi's more confident. He went through the wars last year, and I don't think he has any doubts now. He knows he's good. Of course, he might not have had any doubts last year. But you still have to go out and do it, and he did it.

"There's a big difference from knowing you're good but you haven't done it. He knows now he belongs."

Ichiro was as comfortable last spring as confident, so much so that he frequently stopped to sign autographs, where last year he was a tough sign. He spoke with the press easily and often, in quickly improving English, and as much as anything, he was quicker to beam his broad smile.

But while Piniella meant Ichiro "belongs" in the U.S. game, it could be said that he simply belongs among those who have honored baseball and are honored in return.

It is not merely a matter of being linked his first season with immortals such as Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby and George Sisler, but of the respect Ichiro shows the game by dedicating so much of himself to preparation and excellence.

Many days during spring training, he was one of the last to leave the Mariners' training complex, having worked out long after the games were over.

In this, he apparently is the same as he has always been.

"I think he was more focused than other Japanese players in his years there," said Shigetoshi Hasegawa, his friend and once again teammate.

"When he first came to us at Orix, he reminded me of a kid playing Nintendo games. You speak to them and they don't listen. With Ichiro, you'd say something to him while he was in the batting cage, and it was as if he didn't hear you. We realized soon he was that focused. We learned not to bother."

Hasegawa said last spring that Ichiro would not try for increased home run production this year.

"He is capable of it, no question," Hasegawa said. "But this is where his intelligence comes in. He knows the situation on this club. We have plenty of power hitters, but no one can hit like Ichiro. I suspect he'll continue to produce runs by getting on base, creating scoring situations."

Hasegawa also spoke of his personal feelings of Ichiro's spectacular 2001 season, noting how proud he was.

"I knew him and was a friend, but I would have been very proud of him if I was not, if he was a stranger to me," Hasegawa said. "I couldn't say those things last year, when he was an enemy. Now, we are together again and I am most happy."

Facing Ichiro, as Hasegawa no longer has to, teams are still probing for a weakness.

Early in the 2002 season, the White Sox pitched Ichiro inside the first time, away the second and with slop the third, and he hit them hard. Another club pitched him in, played the defense as if they were pitching him out, and he tripled to the wall in center.

But it was a game last spring that epitomized what Ichiro can do.

With the bases loaded and two outs, he worked the pitcher to a full count, then fouled off three pitches away.

"I can do that intentionally," Ichiro said. "They were borderline. And I was trying to get the pitcher to make a mistake."

The pitcher tried to come inside, which Ichiro wanted, and the result was a line single to right for two runs.

Later in the same game, he came up with a runner on third and one out, and an N.L. scout sitting in the stands said, "This is amazing. You look at this situation and you realize unless they get lucky, there is just no way they can keep (Ichiro) from getting this run home."

Ichiro hit a sacrifice fly to left field.

This is not to say he is Harry Potter with a bat. Because it is tough to pitch to him, some clubs might not. The Yankees essentially did not in the American League Championship Series, and it was one reason for their five-game win over Seattle.

According to a source familiar with the Yankees, their scouts told Joe Torre before the pennant series: "The Mariners have good hitters, Martinez, Boone, Olerud, an improved Cameron. But you can pitch to them. Do not let Ichiro beat you. He is the key to Seattle's offense."

So along with buzzing him inside now and then, the Yankees did not. While their superb pitchers held the Mariners to a .211 average in the ALCS, they kept Ichiro at .222 and even then did not pitch to him with games on the line. In two key moments, they walked him.

Ichiro was flattered to hear the Yankees' strategy on him.

"If that is true, it would give me great joy. But I don't believe it," he said. "I can't say how they pitched to others, I was in the box only for my own at-bats, so I don't know if they pitch others as tough."

He put his struggles down to "playoff baseball" and explained, "In the playoffs every pitch is special because every one is in tune with making their best pitch. Cleveland pitchers did the same. Our pitchers did the same, too.

"That's what is so exciting about the playoffs."

Piniella discounted the idea the Yankees had sent his MVP into a slump.

"They did nothing different they hadn't done before," Piniella said. "The difference is that he had 700 at-bats by the postseason. Remember the season here is longer in our country, the travel is much more pronounced."

Whatever the reason, Ichiro was not his slashing self with the bat in the ALCS, and he found it hard to see New York play and lose to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series.

"It was very difficult to watch on TV, maybe even painful," he said. "But I and my teammates gave it everything we had. We showed our best. Because of this I didn't anguish over the loss for a long period of time."

He said the Mariners were using the World Series miss, what he calls "still unfinished business," as motivation for the 2002 season.

"I think I can speak for everyone that one of our goals is to get to the World Series. Of course, we have a lot of things day-to-day we have to take care of first. We can't dwell on an end result without taking care of business."

If pressed about last year, he will name highlights such as the bunt hit to help win Opening Night, the throw to nail Oakland's Terrence Long, the homer to beat Texas, the All-Star appearance and, most of all, winning the A.L. West with 116 victories.

Despite all he accomplished, capped by the rare Rookie of the Year/MVP exacta, he looks back on his 2001 season as old business and thinks back only when asked.

"Satisfied? That is a difficult word," he said. "In some aspects of the game, I still have things to do."

True, he did not sell tickets nor peanuts nor sweep the park after games. But he did everything else, it seemed.

"In baseball, even the best hitters fail seven of 10 times, and of those seven failures there are different reasons why," Ichiro said. "Some are personal failures, others are losses to the pitcher. You just get beat. In those personal failures, I felt I could have done better."

He recognizes that teams have tried innumerable ways to stop him, adding, "But not every pitcher could perform them. I did not find any single strategy by any single team any more of a problem than others."

Akira Ogi, the manager who saw him blossom at Orix, watched him for several weeks while visiting last spring. He believed Ichiro would use what he learned in 2001.

"Last year I felt the same emotions I did when Ichiro had his first big season in Japan," said Ogi, the former Blue Wave manager. "I found myself thinking again, `What a great one this is.'"

Ogi recalled Ichiro's intelligence and focus, which he said went "beyond the other players there."

"But not only in baseball. He is a smart man, not just a smart player. He uses his head well off the field, too. You can tell that by his willingness to adjust, not only to baseball in the U.S. but to life here. It is different than Japan, far different in many ways, yet Ichiro came with a flexible attitude and adapted quickly and easily and that helped him make the key adjustments in baseball."

He remembered Ichiro setting a goal each year and accomplishing it.

"He would take his swing and change it and improve it. Each year he would cross a hurdle," Ogi said. "He has always thought things through, and I expect him to stay ahead of the pitchers again and always to compete for the leadership in batting."

Thus, there was no one who could predict exactly what Ichiro would show the American League in his sophomore season--but through the end of August, the Mariners were in the chase in the A.L. West, and Ichiro was again among the league leaders in hits (179, first), batting average (.343, second), runs (93, sixth) and stolen bases (27, third).

But Ichiro has been less guarded than he was in 2001, acknowledging, "Last year I was making lots of adjustments. Now, I have a year of knowledge. I know what to expect. I've been there. In that respect, I am better prepared," he said.

"Really, though, I haven't done anything different this year. I'm the same as last year."

Except for the fact that with a month left to go in the season, he had 25 more walks (55) than in his rookie campaign (30) which has jumped his on-base percentage from .381 last year to .406 in 2002.

The Mariners and their fans will take that, thankfully.

ROOKIES WITH 200-HIT SEASONS

ICHIRO SET A ROOKIE RECORD WITH 242 HITS IN 2001, AND BECAME THE 14TH
ROOKIE SINCE 1900 WITH AT LEAST 200 hits in a season. Five of the first
14 came back with another 200-hit season the following year. Through
August 26 of this season, Suzuki was on pace to collect 220 hits in his
second big league campaign.

Here are the rookies with 200 hits:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

                               Rookie            2nd
Player              Team        Year    Hits   Season     Hits

Ichiro Suzuki       Mariners    2001    242    2001       179 *
Tony Oliva          Twins       1964    217    1965       185
Dale Alexander      Tigers      1929    215    1930       196
Nomar Garciaparra   Red Sox     1997    209    1998       195
Harvey Kuenn        Tigers      1953    209    1954       201
Kevin Seitzer       Royals      1987    207    1988       170
Joe DiMaggio        Yankees     1936    206    1937       215
Hal Trosky          Indians     1934    206    1935       171
Johnny Pesky        Red Sox     1942    205    1946 (+)   208
Roy Johnson         Tigers      1929    201    1930       127
Dick Wakefield      Tigers      1943    200    1944 (++)   98

NATIONAL LEAGUE

                               Rookie            2nd
Player                Team      Year    Hits   Season     Hits

Lloyd Waner         Pirates     1927    223    1928       221
Johnny Frederick    Dodgers     1929    206    1930       206
Dick Allen          Phillies    1964    201    1965       187

(+) Missed 1943-1945 seasons in military service for World War II

(++) Called into military service during the 1944 season.

* Hits through August 26

COPYRIGHT 2002 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group