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 — and his fame across the Pacific was therapeutic as the national economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades.

Ichiro Suzuki has made even more history. The all-time great hitter is heading to Cooperstown, with C.C. Sabathia and Billy Wagner joining him.

Global baseball's hit king Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese-born player elected to Major League baseball's Hall of Fame on Tuesday, just one vote shy of unanimous selection.