Baseball reflects on marvel of Ichiro’s career

MLB had never seen anything like Ichiro Suzuki. He arrived a 27-year-old rookie, 1,278 professional hits deep but with so much to prove, so much curiosity surrounding his wiry frame and strange stretching and knee-knocking, black Mizuno bat-waving pre-pitch routine. He leaves — temporarily or otherwise — 17 years and, unfathomably, another 3,089 hits later, with his legacy as an artistic accumulator of Hall of Fame-worthy stats secure.