Before Ichiro takes a swing, before he rabbits out of the box toward first, he's already the most entertaining hitter in baseball. The way he holds the bat up, like it's a divining rod and he's thirsty for water, the way he picks at his sleeves like a tailor and eyes the horizon like a Bedouin spying a path across the desert -- the guy is mesmerizing. He slows the game down, makes each pitch linger, all full of possibility and peril.

- Sportswriter Eric Neel


Ichiro Suzuki (1973- ), the right fielder for the Seattle Mariners, was the first Japanese position player to play in the Major Leagues and is one of the best leadoff hitters in baseball. The best slap hitter in the game, Ichiro has uncanny bat control such that he can punch almost any pitch through a hole in the infield for a base hit, and has enough power to yank an occasional homer to right. Ichiro is also one of the fastest runners in baseball and is a dazzling defensive outfielder with one of the strongest, most accurate arms around. In his first season in America, Ichiro led the American League in batting average (.350) and stolen bases (56) and helped the M's tie the 1906 Chicago Cubs for major league record for wins in a season (116), becoming only the second player since Boston's Fred Lynn to win both the league MVP and Rookie of the Year awards in the same year. Ichiro's one glaring weakness as a hitter is his near total unwillingness to draw a walk, which as long as he maintains it, will always keep him from true elite status as a hitter.

Perhaps the most famous Japanese person in the world, Ichiro's fame and lack of privacy immediately extended to America where he has become the darling of the American baseball media and continues to be relentlessly hounded by Japanese reporters. He has already joined the pantheon of people who are so famous that the are known only by their first name - up there with Elvis, Madonna, and Cher.