Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he's much more than that in Japan. Back home, he's a wellspring of national pride, much like Shohei Ohtani now. His triumphs across the Pacific buoyed the nation as Japan's economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Tuesday is one of the holy days on the baseball calendar, the announcement of players voted into the Hall of Fame. The honor is extreme and well-earned, with just over 1% of all big leaguers making it to Cooperstown for what they did as players: 275 out of 23,370.

It’s tempting to say Ichiro Suzuki, with his detached sense of cool, record-breaking hitting prowess and 28 seasons of excellence on both sides of the globe, was made for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Probably more accurate to say the Hall of Fame was made for him.

To this point, only famed Yankee closer Mariano Rivera has been elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously — not Babe Ruth, not Hank Aaron, not Ken Griffey Jr. nor Derek Jeter, just Rivera. Could Suzuki be the second?

NEW YORK – There’s nothing new to my 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, except the pleasure of voting for first-time eligibles Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia. Of the 28 players appearing on this year’s ballot, I checked six boxes.

There are a lot of former superstars on the 2025 MLB Hall of Fame ballot. Every year, the best of the best will be inducted into Cooperstown and immortalized as a true legend in the sport.

The results of voting for the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class will be revealed Tuesday evening. We already know that Dave Parker and Dick Allen were inducted via the Era Committee last month, so this reveal is the BBWAA portion.

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he is much more than that at home in Japan. Ichiro is a wellspring of national pride — like Shohei Ohtani now —