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Suzuki Will Chase Joltin’ Joe Again

Baseball star Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners.

By Ethen Lieser

Could you ever imagine Simon & Garfunkle singing: “Where have you gone Ichiro Suzuki? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you”? Probably not. But could you imagine Suzuki making a run at baseball’s most hallowed record, Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting-streak?

You should.

And you should go to Vegas and lay down a few bucks. It’ll be worth it. Though his 23-game hitting-streak came to an abrupt end last week, which did perk up a few neck hairs in the baseball world, count on Suzuki to make another run this year.

Why?

Because he can flat out hit. Not like the swing-from-the-heels, ring-out-your-back-so-you-go-on-the-DL-for-60 days style of Manny Ramirez or Mark McGwire. Suzuki can pit-pat base hits like an AK47 or willfully place Texas Leaguers with the precision of a Tiger Woods’ 8-iron chip shot — much like the way Pete Rose, Rod Carew or Ty Cobb did. But that should come with relative ease when your Louisville Slugger has as many sweet spots as antler-points on the Mariner Moose.

Okay, you might be thinking it’s crazy to praise Suzuki’s name in the same breath as Hall-of-Famers Rose, Carew or Cobb. That’s a legitimate complaint. But come on, somebody who’s smoking pitchers for a batting average well-above .350, and galvanizing his team like a racquet-launched shuttlecock to baseball’s best record, deserves at least some kind of congratulatory handshake. And he’s not a flash in the pan, either, as some cold-shouldered critics are probably thinking with the demise of Hideo Nomo the last few years — Ichiro Suzuki is the real deal.

Joe DiMaggio. Photo courtesy of www.baseballhalloffame.org.

Now, back to the great DiMaggio. Baseball-purist sportswriters claim, “Only he can hit in 56 straight games because he’s Joe DiMaggio, the greatest ballplayer who ever lived.” Yes, he is an American icon, and yes, he was a great, great ballplayer. But Suzuki has the raw talent to pierce that immaculate DiMaggio bubble. So here are a few differences between DiMaggio and Suzuki, though those differences produce similar results.

• DiMaggio possessed a sinewy 6-foot-2 body that tipped the scale at 193-pounds.

Suzuki, who tiptoes at 69 inches and weighs-in at a wiry 160-pounds, is like a Lucy Liu action figure compared to DiMaggio.

• DiMaggio wielded his lumber from the right side, and when he swung, he looked like he was pulling back a leashed Clydesdale.

The left-handed, step-in-the-bucket swinging Suzuki is almost on first base before he swings.

• DiMaggio was as graceful as a gazelle when chasing down fly balls and running the bases, though he only swiped 30 bases in his career.

Suzuki is like a hyperactive waterbug, as his league-leading 15 stolen bases prove, and he loves to test short-armed outfielders.

• DiMaggio blasted 361 homeruns in his 13 years with the Yankees, including a high of 46 in 1937.

Suzuki has squeaked out two homeruns in 200 at-bats for the Mariners this season.

• DiMaggio epitomized the quiet, mysterious knight who saves the princess at the end of a fairy tale novel.

A sunglass-clad Suzuki can be heard saying, even though he can’t speak English very well, “What up, dog?” to his teammates.

Now you have a feel of how different these two players are. But to break DiMaggio’s record, Suzuki does not have to be like him. He just needs to do what he has been doing: Getting on base.

Two similarities Suzuki and DiMaggio do share, not by coincidence, are in walks and strikeouts. Suzuki has walked only five times this year, and we’re two months into the baseball season. Meanwhile, DiMaggio averaged 61 walks per year, respectable but still low compared to other sluggers of his era. The most important similarity is their strikeout ratio. Suzuki is the hardest hitter to whiff in baseball today, as he has struck out only 12 times so far (he once went 216 at-bats without striking out for the Orix Blue Wave of the Japanese Pacific League), while DiMaggio averaged a mouth-dropping 28 strikeouts a year in his career.

What does this show?

It shows Suzuki, like DiMaggio, wants to and is able to put the ball in play. You see, to be labeled as successful in baseball, a hitter only needs to reach safely three times in 10 at-bats. It is definitely a game of failure, but if the hitter puts the ball in play consistently, the laws of baseball probability should take effect. A bleeder here and there, or a bad-hop groundball can extend that ever-precious hitting-streak — to hit in 56 straight games, you have to be lucky. And even with his quirky batting-style, Suzuki puts the ball in play more than enough times to get a few lucky bounces.

To any major league hitter, including Suzuki, chipping out a base hit in 56 straight games is almost unfathomable. It’s the daily grind of making contact against the likes of Kevin Brown’s splitter and Pedro Martinez’s desert-dry heat. It’s the grueling, peripatetic life, flying from coast to coast — the hotels, the restaurants, the time zones — sometimes for a fortnight at a time. But when it comes down to it, even through all that, the hitter needs the baseball gods to pull a few strings — because hitting the cover off the ball four straight at-bats doesn’t guarantee the batter a hit.

So, Suzuki — may the gods be with you. And a little advice: Marrying Jennifer Lopez couldn’t hurt, either. Just look at what DiMaggio did when he and Marilyn Monroe tied the knot.