One of the great joys of my youth was watching Stan Musial in his final years with the St. Louis Cardinals. There was — and still is, to me — nothing prettier than that knock-kneed stance at the plate, the sweet swing and all those doubles off the right-field pavilion at old Busch Stadium (or Sportsman’s Park, for those older than me) in St. Louis. He finished a 22-year career in 1963 with a .331 average, 3,630 hits, a .417 on-base percentage and only 696 strikeouts (37 every 162 games).
One of the great joys of my mid-life is watching Ichiro Suzuki in the best years of his career. Ichiro is no Musial, but he’s as consistent as daylight from his game-day preparation to the hits he slaps to all fields and the defense he plays in the outfield.
Yes, I just wrote that. I’m the same guy who has written over the years that Ichiro must be allergic to grass stains on fly balls to the gap and stolen bases in must-run situations. But I’ve also defended Ichiro because being who he is, quirks and all, makes the Mariners a better team. How can you argue with a .333 career average and 1,970 hits in a little more than 8 1/2 seasons?
Today, the Mariners dug up a statistic that dazed me. Ichiro hasn’t gone hitless in back-to-back games sincde Aug. 13-15, 2008. It’s a streak of 144 games and the longest in the major leagues in 65 years. The last guy to pull that off? Musial, who played 174 games without back-to-back hitless games from 1943-44. The longest American League streak is 191 games by Doc Cramer from 1934-35.
It’s another reason I feel privileged for the chance to watch Ichiro every day, just as I was fortunate to cut my baseball teeth as a kid watching Musial.
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