Ichiro soaking up induction weekend in his return to Cooperstown

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – To calm his anxious energy the day before his big day, Ichiro did what he always does.

He played baseball.

On Saturday morning, Ichiro found a nearby Little League field and played catch, part of his daily workout regimen with Allen Turner, his longtime interpreter and confidant.

This is what Ichiro does – this who he is, even at 51 years old, six years into his retirement – and it’s that strict devotion to routine, his obsessive attention to detail, that pushed him here to Cooperstown, and to the brink of baseball immortality.

On Sunday, the Mariners icon will become the first Japanese player elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, joining a 2025 class that also includes Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.

Ichiro is planning to conduct his induction speech in English, as he did when he entered into the Mariners team Hall of Fame in 2022 during a ceremony at T-Mobile Park.

“I’m just under a lot of pressure with the speech tomorrow. Very nervous,” Ichiro said, through Turner, in his opening remarks during a news conference Saturday.

“I probably should be preparing more,” he added, “but this morning I actually went to the field and long-tossed and ran and did my workout. So for me, I guess, that was more important.”

On Friday, Ichiro worked out with Wagner, the longtime closer with 422 saves on his résumé, and two of Wagner’s sons. Wagner even took a turn lobbing pitches to Ichiro in a batting cage.

“What was unique about that was, just his work ethic,” Wagner said. “It was good to have my kids around someone like Ichiro. … He’s so serious and locked in. It was a great moment, and he’s just fun to be around.”

Ichiro was asked Saturday what motivates him, in retirement, to continue to show up at the ballpark every day, to put on a Mariners uniform and prepare as if he was going to play in a big-league game that night.

“When you retire from baseball, you kind of relax. That pressure is gone,” he said. “But when you’re on the field, when you’re in uniform, I have to bring that same energy that the players have. So I need to be able to work out. I need to be able to have that same passion and same work ethic and same energy that the players have – maybe even more than the players, to be able to be with them and to work with them and help them.

“If I didn’t have that, I think that would be disrespectful to the players.”

During his MLB playing career, Ichiro made seven visits to the Hall of Fame. It’s a place he reveres.

This trip is much different.

“As a player, I did come many times, but I had a purpose. I would come and get to go in the basement and look at some of the artifacts,” he said. “This time around, though, I didn’t come to have one purpose to see something. I just wanted to experience Cooperstown. I wanted to just enjoy it all and just take it all in.”

Thousands of fans from Seattle were doing the same Saturday.

Mariners jerseys outnumbered any other MLB jersey by a 10-to-1 count, at least, along Main Street.

The Hall of Fame reported its busiest day of the year Saturday – nearly 6,000 visitors to the museum – and longtime fan Marvin Hamanishi of Lake Forest Park, Washington, was among them for his first visit to Cooperstown.

Hamanishi was at a Mariners game back in Seattle earlier in the week and marveled at seeing Ichiro on the field before the game working out with current players.

“You can tell it’s more than a career for him; it’s his life,” Hamanishi said.

Annette and Matt Daniells, along with their six kids, came from their home in Poulsbo, Washington, all eight wearing a custom sky-blue Ichiro “51” T-shirt.

As they toured the museum, Annette was carrying around a “Cooperstown Bound” bobblehead of Ichiro and Ken Griffey Jr. together, a Mariners giveaway in 2010. She was hoping for an opportunity to get autographs from both of them on the figurines.

“We’re their biggest fans,” she said.

The Daniells family got a front-row view of the Parade of Legends Saturday evening, when more than 50 Hall of Famers strolled by, smiling and wave dutifully. Griffey and Edgar Martinez got two of the biggest cheers of the parade, and at the end of the route Griffey walked back over and signed autographs for a few minutes.

Ichiro was second to last in the parade, and the familiar “Ich-ee-row!” chant greeted his arrival.

The cheers will carry on Sunday.