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Ichiro's Retirement Lasted Approximately 7 Minutes

Mariner’s Blog – He will work the majority of Mariners home games, with the vast majority of his time being spent with the players pre-game. Ichiro retired following the game on March 21 in Japan.

He left as the active Major League hits leader, ranking 21st all-time in MLB history with 3,089 career hits.

After amassing 1,278 hits during a 9-year career (1992–2000) with the Orix Blue Wave of Japan’s Pacific League, Ichiro totaled 4,367 hits between MLB and Japan.

On Aug. 7, 2016, he recorded his 3,000th career hit in the Major Leagues?—?a triple?—?becoming one of 31 players to reach that milestone.

Color me shocked. Career baseball guy Ichirio can’t last a month away from the diamond. I’ve seen it a thousand times and definitely more in baseball than any other sport.

Football guys retire and immediately lose 100 pounds and start a podcast

Or they go to the booth or file a lawsuit or join the FBI blah blah blah. Football guys are always looking for life after Football because Football isn’t who they are. Football is what they do.

Basketball guys retire and immediately GAIN 100 pounds while not doing jack shit because they’re all rich. And then Hockey guys don’t retire because you’re not allowed to quit hockey. Hockey quits you.

Baseball is the unique animal in that 99% of reitrees don’t let go because they physically cannot. You sell your soul for the big leagues and in the process you forego every imaginable life skill to help you on the outside. And let’s be honest – most of baseball is a combination of sitting/standing around while your teammates are doing things. Your joy comes in the brief moments the spotlight is on you whether in the field or at the plate. But again most of your time is spent idling luxuriously.

Transitioning out of that lifestyle has to be IMPOSSIBLE especially for someone like Ichiro. He’s spent the last TWENTY EIGHT YEARS playing professionally. 3600 games. 15,000 plate appearances. 2100 runs scored. Just a preposterous amount of baseball played for one lifetime let alone 5 lifetimes.

So yes, of course the biggest baseball guy in baseball history is sticking around. After all his dad made him way too spiritually strong to quit

At the age of seven, Ichiro joined his first baseball team and asked his father to teach him to be a better player. The two began a daily routine, which included throwing 50 pitches, fielding 50 infield balls and 50 outfield balls, and hitting 500 pitches, 250 from a pitching machine and 250 from his father.

As a little leaguer in Toyoyama, Ichiro had the word “concentration” written on his glove.

By age 12, he had dedicated himself to pursuing a career in professional baseball, and their training sessions were no longer for leisure, and less enjoyable. The elder Suzuki claimed, “Baseball was fun for both of us,” but Ichiro later said, “It might have been fun for him, but for me it was a lot like Star of the Giants,” a popular Japanese manga and anime series about a young baseball prospect’s difficult road to success, with rigorous training demanded by the father.

According to Ichiro, “It bordered on hazing and I suffered a lot.”

When Ichiro joined his high-school baseball team, his father told the coach, “No matter how good Ichiro is, don’t ever praise him. We have to make him spiritually strong.”

Live look at Mr. Suzuki coaching Ichiro’s youth football team: