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The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class was announced earlier this week and to the surprise of nobody, it included former Seattle Mariners superstar Ichiro Suzuki. Suzuki will be joined by CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner, the former of which joined Ichiro as a first-ballot inductee. But what was surprising was the fact that Suzuki was not a unanimous selection.
He, like Derek Jeter in 2020, fell just one vote shy of becoming on the second ever unanimous inductee into the hall of fame. Yankees closer Mariano Rivera is only to player to have the honor bestowed upon him. But fans, former players and several media members all felt that Ichiro deserved to be a unanimous inductee.
Ichiro Suzuki Invites HOF Voter Who Snubbed Him Over To His House
The Japanese superstar isn’t mad, however. He would just like to sit down and have a chat with the person who decided he was unworthy of the spot.
“There’s one writer that I wasn’t able to get a vote from,” Suzuki said via an interpreter Thursday. “I would like to invite him over to my house, and we’ll have a drink together, and we’ll have a good chat.”
Now, I’m not expert here. But I have seen a lot of movies! And when a very powerful figure feels scorned and invites you over for a drink and “a good chat” it usually does not end well! So, if I were that voter I would probably just lay low for a little bit. Never mind the fact that the rest of the baseball world is also mad at you.
Unfortunately, we’ll likely never know who it was that snubbed Ichiro. The voting is anonymous and while many voters make their ballots public, it is not required. Which means we’ll also probably never know the reason for snubbing Suzuki, however ridiculous it may be.
But what we do know is that Ichiro doesn’t seem overly happy about it, and he just wants to have a little chat…