Ichiro Suzuki

Suzuki really came into his own during the 1994 season with the Blue Wave, batting .385 and setting a Japanese record with 210 hits in only 130 games. That same year, he scored in sixty-nine consecutive games between May 21 and August 26. In 1995 Suzuki led the Pacific League with forty-nine stolen bases and knocked home a career-high total of twenty-five home runs. Suzuki in 1996 led the Blue Wave to a Pacific League pennant and the Japanese championship with a win over the Yomiuri Giants. In 1997 with Akira Ogi as the new manager of the Blue Wave, Suzuki enjoyed a string of 216 consecutive at-bats without a strikeout. He won his fifth straight Pacific League batting title in 1998.

Suzuki's 1999 season was cut short when he was struck by a pitch in late August, breaking the ulna bone in his right hand. He nevertheless managed to lead the league for the sixth straight year with a batting average of .343. In 2000, his final year with the Blue Wave, Suzuki maintained a batting average of .387, a Japanese record. For the second year in a row, an injury in August cut short his season. Suzuki's magic on the ball field elevated him to super-celebrity status in Japan, where a poll in the 1990s showed him to be the country's best-known person, trailed closely by Japanese Emperor Akihito. So popular was Suzuki in his homeland that it became difficult for him to go anywhere in Japan without being over-whelmed by fans and the media. So intense was the media scrutiny that when Suzuki and television personality Yumiko Fukushima decided to marry, they flew to Los Angeles for the ceremony. In an interview with ESPN.com, Suzuki said the intrusiveness of the Japanese media had become intolerable. "They would even watch me go to the haircut place or the restaurant. Then they would interview the people at the haircutters."