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, often referred to mononymously as (born October 22, 1973), is a Japanese professional baseball right fielder for the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball (MLB). The bulk of his career was spent with two teams: the Orix Blue Wave of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the Seattle Mariners of MLB in the United States. He also spent two and a half seasons in MLB with the New York Yankees and one season with the Marlins. Ichiro has established a number of batting records, including MLB's single-season record for hits with 262. He had 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons, the longest streak by any player in history. Between his career hits in Japan's and America's major leagues, Ichiro stands at second place all-time in top-flight hits, trailing only Pete Rose. In 2001, Ichiro became the first Japanese-born position player to be posted and signed to the major leagues,〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Baseball-Reference )〕 Ichiro led the American League (AL) in batting average and stolen bases en route to being named AL Rookie of the Year and AL Most Valuable Player (MVP). Ichiro is the first MLB player to enter the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame (The Golden Players Club). He is a ten-time All-Star and won the 2007 All-Star Game MVP Award for a three-hit performance that included the event's first-ever inside-the-park home run. Ichiro won a Gold Glove Award in each of his first ten years in the major leagues, and has had seven hitting streaks of 20 or more games, with a high of 27. Ichiro also leads all active players in stolen bases, with 498. ==Early life== Ichiro grew up in the town of Toyoyama, a relatively small town just outside of Nagoya.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=A Seeker on the Diamond )〕 At the age of seven, Ichiro joined his first baseball team and asked his father, Nobuyuki Suzuki (''Suzuki Nobuyuki''), to teach him to be a better player. The two began a daily routine which included throwing 50 pitches, fielding 50 infield balls and 50 outfield balls, and hitting 500 pitches, 250 from a pitching machine and 250 from his father. As a little leaguer in Toyoyama,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ichiro museum opens window to Japan's baseball icon )〕 Ichiro had the word written on his glove. All of the little leaguers on his team in Japan nicknamed him "Baz", which means fast in Japanese. By age 12, he had dedicated himself to pursuing a career in professional baseball, and their training sessions were no longer for leisure, and less enjoyable.The elder Suzuki claimed, "Baseball was fun for both of us," but Ichiro later said, "It might have been fun for him, but for me it was a lot like ''Star of the Giants,''" a popular Japanese manga and anime series about a young baseball prospect's difficult road to success, with rigorous training demanded by the father. According to Ichiro, "It bordered on hazing and I suffered a lot."〔Whiting, Robert (2004). ''The Meaning of Ichiro''. p.6. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-53192-4.〕 When Ichiro joined his high school baseball team, his father told the coach, "No matter how good Ichiro is, don't ever praise him. We have to make him spiritually strong." When he was ready to enter high school, Ichiro was selected by a school with a prestigious baseball program, Nagoya's ''Aikodai Meiden Kōkō''. Ichiro was primarily used as a pitcher instead of as an outfielder, owing to his exceptionally strong arm. His cumulative high school batting average was .505, with 19 home runs. He built strength and stamina by hurling car tires and hitting Wiffle balls with a heavy shovel, among other regimens. These exercises helped develop his wrists and hips, adding power and endurance to his thin frame. Despite his outstanding numbers in high school, Ichiro was not drafted until the fourth and final round of the professional draft in November 1991, because many teams were discouraged by his small size of and .〔(Whiting, 2004, pp. 2–12.)〕 (Years later, Ichiro told an interviewer, "I'm not a big guy and hopefully kids could look at me and see that I'm not muscular and not physically imposing, that I'm just a regular guy. So if somebody with a regular body can get into the record books, kids can look at that. That would make me happy.") 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ichiro Suzuki」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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