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 debuted in Major League Baseball in 2001 with the Seattle Mariners, the first Japanese position player to span the Pacific and an instant star. Left-handed pitcher Hideo Nomo preceded him, and Hideki Matsui came just after, both boosting the country’s confidence in a period of national malaise.

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 —

On April 2, 2001, Bret Boone jogged to second base for a chilly Opening Day in Seattle. The roof at Safeco Field was open, the upstart Oakland Athletics were in town, and ESPN2 had the national broadcast. Boone was preparing for the first pitch of his 10th season when second base umpire Kerwin Danley called his name.

Ichiro Suzuki has become the first Japanese player to make it to baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is likely to be the next.

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he's much more than that in Japan. Back home, he's a wellspring of national pride.

The success of many players from the Land of the Rising Sun -- from Hideo Nomo to Ichiro Suzuki to Shohei Ohtani ... returning for two final games with Seattle in the 2019 season-opening series in Tokyo, where he made an emotional farewell.

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.

Suzuki spent nine seasons with Orix in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball before joining MLB and the Mariners in 2001. While Japanese pitcher Hideo Nomo was a star for the Dodgers in the 1990s, Suzuki was the first Japanese position player to enjoy that level of success in the majors.

Hideo Kojima has revealed the ongoing video game actors strike has affected production on his Xbox game as well as his upcoming action espionage title for Sony. In a tweet, Kojima said that Kojima ...

Japanese baseball stars have almost exclusively come to MLB after playing in NPB. Morii is breaking precedent by signing with the A's.

Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward plans to extend its ban on drinking on the streets to cover the entire year, while Shinjuku Ward is taking its first measures to deal with crowds of Halloween revelers.