Ichiro Suzuki could have been immortalized as a first-ballot Hall of Famer nearly a decade ago. He was last a full-time starter in 2012, at age 38. He logged his 3,000th hit in 2016, when he was 42. Still, he made us wait three more years to celebrate his retirement.

It wasn’t annoying that he lingered for so long. It was Ichiro at his purest. The one-of-a-kind right fielder, now the first Japanese player headed to Cooperstown, was an athlete who refused to break routine, even when his starlight dimmed. Once he couldn’t provide thrills with regularity, you would have thought he would lose his joy. But his love for baseball is not conditional. He remained as faithful to the four hours before the first pitch as he did to the three-hour competition. Just thinking about his meticulous stretch

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