Becoming the Hit Machine: Ichiro Suzuki’s Historic 2004

0:00In 2004, E. Trio Suzuki wrote the history book. He took a season where his team struggled to win games and made it remarkable. Breaking a record that stood since 1920, the single season hit mark. And which stretched it to 262 hits in a single season showcasing his unique skill in raw speed being a complete player that would be a dream in today's baseball. And when he finally broke, George Sistler's legendary record, the baseball world stood in awe as he was breaking barriers, allowing Japanese players to play in Major League Baseball. Join us today as we dive into this historic season in what made E. Trio a legend on daily sports history. Hey CSACs here. Your health journey is personal and your Medicare Advantage plan should be too. Alignment Health Plan provides a broad network of doctors and specialists, along with a care

1:03team that's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You'll also receive a monthly spending allowance for over-the-counter items and a fitness membership to support your overall health and well-being. Discover a plan that supports you at every stage of life. Visit AlignmentHealthPlan.com today. AlignmentHealthPlan.com For generations, Ford and your Southern California Four Dealers have considered it an honor and a responsibility to serve their communities. That legacy continues in September during Ford's annual food drive. Support your local community and donate non-perishable food items at your local Southern California Four Dealers. Can't go. Post a rice cookie oil. Let's make history together breaking records. Visit Ford.com slash local to learn more. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese. Your guide, because I can quote every line from the movie Sandlot. And today's trivia question to listen out for, how long was the

2:05history did George Sysler have during his historic 1920 season? So to start, Ichiro was born in Kugai, Japan. And with the help of his family, quickly picked up baseball. His father played a pivotal role overseeing his training sessions for hours as he grew to love the game more and more in his reputation as a schoolboy prodigy despite his small size, which he only grew to be about 5, 9, 130 pounds when he was in Japan. But even with his small size, he showed a unique skill for getting on base and getting base hits. And this allowed him to get drafted in the fourth round of the Nippon Professional Baseball League, which is the highest league in Japan. Whenever a player comes over to play in the Major League Baseball from Japan, they come from this league. And it's really the second best league in the entire world. And he was drafted by the Orix Blue Wave in 1992 right out of high

3:08school. But he spent the first couple seasons in minor league baseball because of his small size and his unconventional batting motion. Now, if you've not ever seen Ichiro swing, it's a swing where he does a big leg kick, which is a very common swing in Japan. It's something they actually teach a lot. Then he moves his body forward as the ball is coming, like almost in a starting running position. So it's a very hard thing to replicate because you have to not only be moving but move and swing the bat with a ball coming at you, maybe a hundred miles an hour, very difficult skill to learn, but he perfected it over time. Now, this pendulum swing wasn't an uncommon swing in the Nippon Baseball League. People had done it before to try to get an advantage, especially the left handed hitters as they were closer to the first base. If they could get a quick hit and be already running to first, it gave them an extra step. But it's frowned upon here. We want home runs. We want big hits. We want solid contact. But nowadays, we just want to

4:12get on base that leads to runs. But after a couple years in the minors, he joined the pro team. Where he had a batting average of 385 and set a Japanese record with 210 hits in just 130 games. And he would go on to win seven consecutive batting tiles for the Pacific League and posted a career batting average of 353, collecting over 1200 hits in just a seven year span. He would win three consecutive MPPs from 1994 to 1996 and became known as the hit manufacturing machine. Japan, sorry, work on your nicknames. That's a terrible nickname. But after the 2000 season, the Nippon League had joined with Major League Baseball to develop a posting system. See, prior to this, the Japanese players didn't go play Major League Baseball. So we probably missed out on many, many, many, many great baseball players. As we know now, seeing Shayai Otoni

5:14just breaking down barriers in baseball of what he can do, we missed probably a lot of other players that could have really done something special. But this system was put into place to kind of start to having a chance for these players to join Major League Baseball. The problem was this gave financial compensation to the Japanese teams for losing this great player. But it also meant that Major League Baseball was paying extra money just to pay these players extra money. It was a crazy system that was a sealed bidding system where you would bid for just the right to negotiate with the player. So a lot of teams, especially to start with in this system, did not want to participate because it was a lot of money. And there was no track record of a player coming over as a position player and having success in the Major League. So it was a huge gamble. Some teams were willing to pay that gamble. And the Mariners beat out the match, the Dodgers, the Angels, and the Red Sox for the chance to bid for the right to each row. And they bid over $13 million just a bid for the rights.

6:20And they would end up giving him a three year, $14 million contract. So and that up, they're paying $27 million for each row. If you total it in three years. But the reason was was the owners of the Seattle Mariners was Hiroshi Miyamachi. And he was the president of Nintendo, which is the biggest gaming system in Japan and a huge company there. So he already knew how good each year was and knew it was worth paying that extra money. So they had a little bit behind the curtain. And someone nudging them to want to have him in Seattle. So each year became the first position player in Major League Baseball history. There's also Mara Kami who played for the Giants in 1964. He was a pitcher and he was just okay. And then he had he day no more. If we started pitching in 1995 and he was pretty good. So we've only had pictures. This was the first position player. And it wasn't the guy you looked at and thought, Oh, look, he's going to have so much power. He's going to change the game because at this time it was all about power. We had just had multiple seasons from Mark

7:24McGuire and St. Mingsosa breaking home run records and not far behind them was Barry Barnes. So this was the power steroids era in each year. So Zuki was not that at all. Just the exact opposite. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to have success. And he came in with a bank hitting 242 hits in his very first season. Led Major League Baseball in multiple categories in hits, batting average with 350 and stolen bases with 56 and he would be named rookie of the year in the American League. And the MVP of the American League, it just showed how good and how great he was when he came over. It was just surprising for everyone that didn't think Japan had a good baseball program. So we came out of the gate swinging and he continued to have success after success. After the 2001 season had more success and then he was a perennial all star. One of the best players in the league coming into the 2004 campaign. So the team came in and they weren't expected to do a lot but they

8:29finished second in the division the year before winning 93 games and they hadn't made a whole lot of changes. So they thought maybe there was a good chance they would have to be able to build on the success and have another good campaign. Fortunately that is not what happened. The team just hung they just kept losing and each row also struggled at the very beginning of the season. Hitting just 26 hits in April with a batting average of 255. This is a guy that regularly had a batting average over 325. One of the most consistent hitters but he was struggling. So he took it upon himself used all the things he could focused, watched more film focused on defensive shifts that were coming his way seeing how he could alleviate this. Then come May he exploded this broke his lump. He hit 50 hits in May July he hit 51 and August he hit 56 hits with a batting average of 4.63 the best monthly performance in major league baseball history and in September he would

9:34again hit more than 50 hits becoming the first player in the modern era to have 4.50 hit months in one season. Showing that it wasn't just a few games here and there. From May 1st till September 9th he hit over 400 which put him in rarefied air. That season he had more than 80 multi hit games and most of his hits were singles. He really perfected that pendulum swing and getting on base. He would go on to hit 262 hits this season breaking a record that stood since 1920 and 225 of those were singles and he ended the season with a batting average of 372 but he wasn't just doing it at the plate. That season added another global glove to his collection and finished second in the American league in stolen bases with 36. He was the epitome of the small ball or

10:36the money ball technique that became very popular around this time and he was the perfect gym for the next gen stats era. So the season is going great for each hero after his low start and when October 1st comes each hero is accepted to play to break George Sistler's single season record. The crowd is packed creating a night of drama. He's two hits behind to break the record and George his record is memorable in and of itself. He hit 257 hits in a season with just 154 games. That's eight less than each hero would play and that's included a month of June where he had 60 hits and had a 41 game hit streak during that year. It was also voted AL MVP but now in 2004 he drew Adam in his sights. Coming into the game he had 256 hits, one shy of Sistler's record. So coming into the game facing off against the Texas Rangers at Safe Co Field the fans were ready

11:41to see what would happen. In the first inning he is the lead off hitter facing Ryan Dries. He takes a strike, fows off two pitches then he singles to left tying Sistler's record. The crowd erupts. They were just excited to see him tie it but then in the third inning he comes back up to the plate and with a three two count he singles right up the middle in a patented each hero style makes it to first breaking the record becoming the all time hitter in regular season history. Fireworks explode from the stadium. The crowd gives of standing ovation the team rushes to greet each hero. He gives a reluctant smile as he doesn't love the spotlight but feels the enormous weight lifted and he describes it as the best moment in his baseball career and immediately after he shook the hand of George Sistler's daughter Francis who later expressed that her father would have been happy to know such a great player and man would break his record. And he's your father who was in Japan watching the game would brought to tears celebrating everything that was happening

12:44for his son in Seattle. Oh the season wasn't over. He would go on to add four more hits bringing him to a total of 262 hits that year. That was 46 more than the runner up and he received tributes from legends in the baseball world and even from his home country of Japan. Major League Baseball honored each role with a replica bat modeled after Sistler's commemorating the his and you could say this may have been the peak of each of his career. He would not break his record but would continue to maintain having 10 consecutive seasons with over 200 hits the only player to ever do so and no one has ever come close to breaking his record and probably never will. To do so you have to hit at least one hit in every single game meaning you do not get injured and you are always playing something that does not happen in today's sports. You would also go on to accumulate over 3,000 in 89 hits in the major leagues. Adding it to the Japanese total it makes him the most prolific hitter of all time with a total of 4,367 hits which tops Pete Rose and he would also be

13:51the first Asian-born player inducted into the national baseball Hall of Fame breaking down multiple barriers for multiple players from Japan to come over here and the Seattle Mariners had went on to retire his number 51 and interestingly enough they actually retired to number 51's as Randy Johnson also wore 51 for the Mariners in the 90s one of the greatest pictures of all time so they have two 51's but they didn't retire them on the same day because Randy wanted each row to have his moment on his own. Now each row is a special assistant with the Mariners and a chairman with the team behind the scenes mentoring the next generation and always being a guide in a role model for everyone in the world as baseball is now a world game thanks to each row. I want to thank you for listening to Daily Sports History and I want to let you know that I'm going to be doing some things a little differently even try some different things to the show

14:52maybe do different sound effects or different segments or I'm not sure exactly but I hope you stick around and if you have ideas for the show or some comments you want to leave me send it to daily sports history at gmail.com I will reply to you for sure give me all the feedback you can because the feedback you give me I take the heart and we will work on this making this the best show possible and we'll see you on the next one. And did you catch the answer to today's trivia question? How long was the hit streak that George Sysler had during his incredible 1920 season and the answer was 41 games one of the highest hit streaks ever in MLB history. Hey CSACs here your health journey is personal and your Medicare Advantage plan should be too. Alignment Health plan provides a broad network of doctors and specialists along with a care team

15:54that's available 24 hours a day seven days a week you'll also receive a monthly spending allowance for over-the-counter items and a fitness membership to support your overall health and well-being discover a plan that supports you at every stage of life visit AlignmentHealth plan.com today AlignmentHealth plan.com If you put your name on a vehicle you're signing off on its quality and your Southern California Ford dealers don't take that lightly Ford is number one for JD Powers new vehicle quality among mainstream brands with a built Ford top truck you instantly get more capable especially with the quality of Ford F-150 and Supernew that's more JD power initial quality awards for trucks than any other brand two years in a row see the award winning lineup yourself. Visit your local Southern California Ford dealer and take a test drive today.