Overview
Ichiro Suzuki began playing professional baseball in Japan in 1992 for the Orix Blue Wave in Nippon Professional Baseball's Pacific League. He started playing Major League Baseball in the United States in 2001 and was the second Japanese position player to play in the Big Leagues. Ichiro has a record-setting 10 straight seasons with 200 hits or more. He also has the record for most hits in a single season with 262 which he achieved in 2004. He played for the New York Yankees after being traded from the Seattle Mariners on July 23 2012, ending his 12 year career with Seattle, but after another 2 years in New York and a 3-year stint with the Miami Marlins, he returned to the Mariners for the 2018 season. Early in the season, however, he chose to stop playing, and now serves an unusual advisory/coaching role in the Mariners dugout. Though most analysts believe that Ichiro is effectively retired, he has expressed a desire to resume playing in 2019.
Because he was widely known as simply "Ichiro" by the time he crossed over to MLB, Ichiro became the first player to wear his given name, rather than a surname, on his jersey, and has done so throughout his career.
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