Ichiro Suzuki's baseball career was the stuff of legends. He excelled in NPB as chronicled below, then burst onto the scene in the major leagues and earned the respect of his peers and fans on the other side of the Pacific.
And without a doubt, he's a future Baseball Hall of Famer, which will make him the first Japanese player to be enshrined in Cooperstown, New York. Above all, that's a fitting tribute to the way he played the game and dedicated himself to his craft.
Suzuki won seven consecutive Golden Gloves (1994-2000) in Japan, won seven straight batting titles and was named to seven Best Nine teams in that span. He was the Matsutaro Shoriki Award winner in 1994 and 1995 while with Orix, and again in 2004 after breaking the MLB hits record.