Ichiro puts own spin on new role
The former Mariners player is now part mentor, cheerleader and fan favourite
BALTIMORE — At precisely the right moment, Ichiro Suzuki bounded through the visitors’ dugout at Camden Yards, headed for a group of celebrating players on the field dressed just like him.
A second earlier and he would have been in violation of a Major League Baseball rule prohibiting him from the dugout during games. Two seconds later and he would have trailed behind the coaches, who typically exit the dugout last.
After each Seattle win, Suzuki slips into that breach. For a brief moment, he strides cheerfully alone in foul territory, occupying a baseball netherworld between coach and player.
For now, Suzuki is neither.
The Mariners decommissioned him as a player May 3 and shifted him into a front-office advisory role that seems unprecedented in the modern game — uniformed consultant, mentor, baseball professor and cheerleader.
He dresses for every game, home and away. He stretches with the active players, shags fly balls and hits in the last group of batting practice, launching baseballs far into the stands as fans scamper after the souvenirs, many amazed at the power this wiry 44-year-old from Toyoyama, Japan, still generates.
He does everything the players do except play. He even has a small corps of Japanese reporters following him around to record this latest, unusual stage of his remarkable career.
“With my personality, the way I’m geared, I like to do things nobody is doing, not just in baseball, but fashion and other things, too,” Suzuki said through his longtime interpreter, Allen Turner. “To do something that’s never been done before, it’s fun and interesting.”
And anything Suzuki does, including when he donned a disguise to sneak on the bench during a recent game, he does with precision. Adhering to a strict regimen of diet, exercise and practice — lots of practice — Suzuki produced 3,089 hits in his 18-year career in North America.
As a player, he would regularly bring one of his carefully crafted, weighed and dehumidified bats into his hotel room and swing it in front of a mirror on days the team travelled and he was unable to get to the ballpark. Now, even with no pitchers to face, he still does that.
“Everything is the same,” Suzuki said while sitting, in uniform and holding a bat, with gloves on, in the dugout at Camden Yards last week. “You’re not going to see me slacking.”
He has the same daily routine, including his nutrition — with one tiny variation. Instead of two or three cheeseburgers every day for lunch, Suzuki has cut down to one or two. Without burning off that handful of extra calories during games, he believes he is in danger of growing pudgy.
“I noticed that if we go on a long road trip, I will gain between 1.5 and two pounds,” he said.
A part of all this continued training and conditioning is Suzuki’s plan to “definitely” return as a player in 2019. The Mariners do not hide their desire to have him on their roster for their season-opening series against the Oakland Athletics at the Tokyo Dome next March.
But the moment Suzuki became an executive in uniform, he lost his eligibility to play for the Mariners, who have a good chance to make the playoffs this season for the first time since Suzuki’s rookie year, 2001. MLB rules prohibit any player who moves into a front-office role from playing for that team again in the same season (although he could play for another team).
In the meantime, as Suzuki feels out his new role, he still makes news in Seattle and Japan. He was a story when he filled in as the bench coach for a recent doubleheader in Texas. He was in charge of the lineup cards that day, and said he spent the whole time staring at the card to avoid mistakes, missing much of the game action. That experience told him he was not cut out to manage.
He recently threw batting practice, which provided more material for Ichiro-hungry readers in Japan.
“There is still a lot of interest in him,” said Keizo Konishi, a writer for the Kyodo News Service, who has followed Suzuki since the outfielder’s arrival in Seattle in 2001. “I write about him every few days.”
Suzuki was also recently in the news because Scott Servais, Seattle’s manager, said Suzuki should enter the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game festivities. Suzuki laughed it off but has not ruled it out, and some think it would make great theatre.
“Oh, definitely,” said Adam Jones, the Baltimore Orioles’ centrefielder. “Start a campaign. The guy’s still tanking balls into the upper deck in BP. I think it’s damn awesome what he’s doing.”
Suzuki said he now feels pressure to flash his remarkable power in batting practice, and he often does. Before a recent game at Yankee Stadium, he took about 25 swings in the last group of batting practice, and a dozen balls went over the wall, five of them into the second deck.
“Yankee Stadium,” Suzuki said with a big laugh, acknowledging that stadium’s short right field.
When the Mariners approached Suzuki about this unusual job, he said his first concern was not to get in the way. He has shattered many long-standing, unwritten rules governing inactive players travelling with the team and being in the clubhouse — not to mention taking regular batting practice.
But the Mariners still consider
him a member of the team and seem to genuinely love having him around.
“He’s our teammate, first and foremost,” second baseman Dee Gordon said defiantly. “He’s my friend, but he’s definitely my teammate.”
Gordon said the demotion was initially difficult for Suzuki, but said that he rebounded with his usual humour and professionalism. Suzuki still helps the Mariners, he said, through mentorship and example.
Outfielder Mitch Haniger said he has studied video of Suzuki’s footwork on long throws from the outfield, and now asks him detailed questions about it as they shag fly balls in the outfield.
“He’s one of the most instinctive players that’s ever played the game and he sees things that he should share,” said Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners’ general manager.
“The one regret I have is that he’s not able to sit on the bench during the game, because it would be fun to see how that would manifest itself.”
Actually, it already did manifest itself, in amusing fashion. During a June 21 day game at Yankee Stadium, Suzuki appeared briefly on the bench disguised in a bushy moustache, sunglasses and a hoodie. He even wore dark shoes, unlike the colourful spikes he normally wears. The practical joke, modelled on Bobby Valentine’s famous ingame masquerade in 1999, was quintessential Suzuki, executed only after thorough preparation.
Suzuki spent about an inning quietly observing on the bench, for which the Mariners received a warning from MLB. But the team loved it.
“Typical Ichiro,” Servais said with a laugh. “It was in New
York, it was the last day there so he could get out of town without talking about it. It was only as Ichiro can do it, with the moustache flown in from Japan.”
But even amid the laughter, Suzuki’s presence has mostly given players the chance to learn from him. Andrew Romine, the utility player who spends perhaps the most time with Suzuki during games, said Suzuki holds an informal roundtable at the indoor batting cage each night. There, Romine and others can ask him any question they want.
“We call it ‘class,’ and he’s the professor,” Romine said. “And we don’t take it lightly. How often do you get a chance to ask anything to a guy like that, a definite Hall of Famer? It’s awesome.”
When Suzuki is not in the batting cage during games, he divides his time doing exercises and watching the game on television, with his colourful batting gloves on. When a win seems imminent, he creeps down the tunnel toward the dugout entrance, poised to leap out and join the players in their celebration at the exact right moment.
“I couldn’t be happier with the way this has gone,” Dipoto said. “He’s been incredibly energetic, mentoring the guys and providing an example of how to prepare. And then he magically appears after a win and is the first one at the head of the line.”
He’s not a coach and not a player, but always unique.