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52-year-old Ichiro Suzuki K’s 17 high school girls in All-Star game
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- 52-year-old Ichiro Suzuki K’s 17 high school girls in All-Star game
Ichiro Suzuki , at 52 years old, remains an active participant in the sport that made him a legend. Last weekend, he pitched in an All-Star game against high school girls in his home country of Japan. Ichiro threw a 127-pitch shutout and struck out 17.
As if that paragraph wasn't incredible enough, there is video of the whole game available on YouTube. According to the Seattle Times , 25,000 fans showed up at the Tokyo Dome on Sunday, Sept. 13, to watch the game , which also featured former New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui. Ichiro also had two hits in the game.
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Ichiro vs. high school girls video
This is not the first time Ichiro has participated in one of these games, but it did work out much better for him this time than it did in 2023. During that game, a 15-year old girl struck him out on three pitches.
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That's no small feat. Ichiro struck out 1,080 times in nearly two decades of Major League Baseball. He is tied for 334th on the all-time strikeout list, but is 32nd all-time in at-bats.
Ichiro came to America in 2001 and immediately led MLB in hits, stolen bases and batting average. He won the batting title twice, led the league in hits seven times and almost never missed a game through the first dozen years of his MLB career.
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He retired with a .311 batting average, which is good, but not quite as good as he was in Japan, where he hit .353 in nine seasons. Between the two leagues he has more hits than anyone in professional baseball history besides Pete Rose, if Rose's minor-league hit total is included.
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