Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he's much more than that in Japan. Back home, he's a wellspring of national pride, much like Shohei Ohtani now. His triumphs across the Pacific buoyed the nation as Japan's economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

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 —

Ichiro Suzuki, whose outstanding play in Japanese baseball led him to international stardom in the major leagues, was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

The Seattle Mariners all-time hit king and owner of several MLB and NPB records received the first of what's likely to be two different Hall of Fame inductions earlier this week.