The Hall of Fame voter who declined to select Ichiro Suzuki remains a mystery.
All 321 voters who allowed their ballots to be made public Tuesday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America selected the Japanese star. Suzuki appeared on 393 of 394 ballots when voting was announced on Jan. 21.
“There’s one writer that I wasn’t able to get a vote from,” he said later that week. "I would like to invite him over to my house, and we’ll have a drink together, and we’ll have a good chat.”
The Hall's rules allow each voter the choice whether to make a ballot public. The BBWAA voted 80-19 at its December 2016 meeting to propose making all ballots public, but the Hall of Fame’s board of directors decided to leave the decision up to each voter.
Mariano Rivera remains the only player to get 100% of the vote from the BBWAA, appearing on all 425 ballots in 2019. Derek Jeter was chosen on 395 of 396 in 2020.
Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner were elected by the BBWAA this year and will be inducted into the Hall at Cooperstown on July 27 along with Dave Parker and Dick Allen, voted in by the classic era committee in December.
Suzuki was a two-time AL batting champion and 10-time All-Star and Gold Glove outfielder, hitting .311 with 117 homers, 780 RBIs and 509 stolen bases with Seattle (2001-12, 2018-19), the New York Yankees (2012-14) and Miami (2015-17).
He is perhaps the best contact hitter ever, with 1,278 hits in Nippon Professional Baseball and 3,089 in MLB, including a season-record 262 in 2004. His combined total of 4,367 exceeds Pete Rose’s MLB record of 4,256.
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11 Comments
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SomeWeeb
Big drama
iknowall
No, because adding Pete Rose's 427 hits in the minors he has a combined total of 4683, exceeding Ichiro's totals,
stormcrow
Ichiro beginning to look a little like Phil Collin’s.
shogun36
Ichiro beginning to look a little like Phil Collin’s.
Ahhh yes, that time Phil had hair.......and was Asian.
I remember it like it was never.
tamanegi
Nice painting of Ichiro.
Mocheake
Look, I feel he should have been unanimous but until Mariano a few years ago, NO ONE got 100%. That means people like Babe Ruth, Cy Young and Lou Gehrig. Much ado about really a small thing. Whomever it was had their reason but it is not necessary that we find out and have the Gestapo interrogate them.
movieguy
Mocheake 7 - I agree with you, but it would nice to hear of a logical reason to not vote for him to get in, other than he/she thinks no one should be voted in unanimously.
smithinjapan
Great player in a number of respects, but a very arrogant person, at least in his early years abroad. HIs teammates thought so as well and said as much. I have no doubt he wants to have a drink with the person who didn't vote for him because he's incredulous at the fact and would like to brag about himself and lord over said person.
Still, he deserves to be inducted in the Hall of Fame for his playing, bottom line.
Speed
I like how they make the picture of him out be him teary-eyed about not getting 100% of the votes.
stickman1760
@iknowall
i assume you are joking
minor league stats don’t count in major league records . For anyone
lostrune2
Sometimes, a HOF voter won't put person(s) in the Vote List of 10 because the voter already knows the person(s) will get in, so the voter would rather put other name(s) who need the vote since the List is limited to 10 names