ICHIRO SUZUKI

Seattle center fielder Julio Rodríguez was voted American League Rookie of the Year on Monday.

Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez and Atlanta's Michael Harris II, a pair of 21-year-old center fielders, are baseball's Rookies of the Year.

There was bunting draped off the railings in October and logos painted on the grass of T-Mobile Park that were absent for the past two decades when the Seattle Mariners were stuck in baseball purgatory and left as a spectator every postseason.

Baseball is fun again in the Pacific Northwest in a way that it hasn’t been in more than two decades.

Three years removed from his last game as a player with the Seattle Mariners in his home country of Japan, Suzuki hasn’t lost that competitive drive. Suzuki played parts of three seasons with the Yankees, three more in Miami before returning to Seattle to close out his career. His final appearance came at the beginning of the 2019 season which Seattle opened with two games in Japan. Saturday’s induction with the Mariners is likely just a precursor for 2025 when Suzuki is first eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was like a relationship and we got to this point.”___More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_SportsCopyright 2022 The Associated Press.

Ichiro Suzuki may finally take a day off from his pregame routine of throwing, running, fielding during batting practice when he becomes the latest inductee into the Seattle Mariners’ Hall of Fame.

More than five hours before Friday’s first pitch, Ichiro Suzuki was in the outfield, in uniform still going through his throwing routine. Three years removed from his last game as a player with the Seattle Mariners in his home country of Japan, Suzuki hasn’t lost that competitive drive. “If the guys on the team come up and ask me a question about baseball I want to be able to tell them, but also be able to show them and if I don’t continue to do what I’m doing, physically being ready, training, I won’t be able to really help them,” Suzuki said through his interpreter on Friday.

Pete Alonso, Albert Pujols and Kyle Schwarber tee off in the All-Star Home Run Derby at Dodger Stadium, where fans see how far and fast the sluggers can launch longballs into the Los Angeles twilight.

The Baltimore Orioles have the first pick in the amateur draft for the second time in four years -- and they’ll be looking for someone who can join 2019 top pick Adley Rutschman in the core of their next contender.

1973: Baseball player Ichiro Suzuki is born in Kasugai, Aichi, Japan. Originally a player in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball, Ichiro moved to the United States in 2001 to play in the MLB for the Seattle Mariners, with whom he spent 12 seasons before being traded to the New York Yankees during the 2012 season. He has played for the Miami Marlins since 2015. Between his 1,278 career hits in Japan's and his more than 3,000 MLB hits, he has the most hits by any player in top tier professional leagues, surpassing Pete Rose's 4,256 hits in June 2016. Hide Caption