Ichiro Suzuki on jersey retirement – ‘No place like home’

SEATTLE — Ichiro Suzuki paused at times to collect his thoughts and placed his hand on his heart as he spoke thoughtfully about what it meant to have his No. 51 retired by the Seattle Mariners.

Suzuki met with reporters before Seattle’s game Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rays, the morning after his jersey was retired by the team.

Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame last month, Suzuki was touched by praise from Mariners manager Dan Wilson, a former teammate, and team chairman John Stanton, who announced that Suzuki will have his own statue at T-Mobile Park, joining broadcaster Dave Niehaus, Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez.

He said he never imagined his number would be enshrined at the ballpark.

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“It’s something that you couldn’t even dream or think about, and it actually happened,” Suzuki said through a translator.

Suzuki is the third Seattle player to have his number retired by the team, joining Griffey and Martinez.

“The view I had yesterday from the field, looking up at a full, full stand of Mariners fans, was amazing. At Cooperstown, there were a lot of fans, but it was kind of from a higher position looking down. This yesterday where we were looking up, and it was just a full stand of people, that was great,” Suzuki said

Suzuki first joined the Mariners in 2001. That year he joined Fred Lynn (1975) as the only players to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season.

Over his 19-year career, Suzuki was a two-time AL batting champion and 10-time All-Star and Gold Glove winner, hitting .311 with 117 homers, 780 RBIs and 509 stolen bases with Seattle, the New York Yankees and Miami Marlins.

Suzuki wound up with 3,089 hits over his career, which included 14 combined seasons in two stints with Seattle. After playing for the Yankees and Miami, he spent his final two seasons with the Mariners and retired in 2019.

“I’m damn proud to be a Seattle Mariner,” Ichiro said, echoing Griffey’s famous words. “Just like him, I realized by going away, there really is no place like home.”

The Mariners will erect the statue of Suzuki at T-Mobile Park in 2026. It will feature his iconic batting stance pose.

Suzuki still works for the Mariners, serving as a special assistant to Stanton. He often works out with players during pregame warmups, which he did Sunday.

“I think what’s special about this team is you see a lot of teams where negativity kind of gets passed down, and it just kind of grows with a team,” Suzuki said. “That’s something that happens a lot, and it’s easy for negativity to grow within a team. But this team, the positive is getting passed down from player to player, and it is growing and growing. … It’s the positive that is being passed around, and you can just see it and feel it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.