It's been over two years, and Amy Franz still has no idea how Ichiro Suzuki knew it was her birthday. That particular June 11, in 2014, Franz, a longtime Mariners fan, was sitting in right field, as usual, at Seattle's Safeco Field. She was watching for foul balls during batting practice while her husband, Joe, sat next to her using a camera she'd received as a gift.
Ichiro, then with the New York Yankees, was practicing in center field when they noticed him pull out a sharpie and begin scribbling on a baseball.
"Then he starts walking out towards right," Franz said during a recent telephone conversation with The Japan Times. "I hadn't talked to him before (during that season). He threw the ball up to me and it said, 'To Amy: Happy B.D.' He signed 'Ichiro' on the sweetspot and the other side has the date.