New York (AP) – The voter of the Hall of Fame that decided not to select Ichiro Suzuki is still a mystery.
The 321 voters who allowed their votes to be made public on Tuesday by the Association of Baseball Writers of North America selected the Japanese star. Suzuki appeared in 393 of 394 ballots when the votes were announced on January 21.
“There is a writer from which I couldn’t get a vote,” Suzuki said later. “I would like to invite him to my house, we will take something together and we will have a good talk.”
The rules of the Hall of Fame allow each voter to make their ballot public. The BBWAA voted 80-19 at its December 2016 meeting to propose that all the ballots were made public, but the Board of Directors of the Hall of Fame decided to leave the decision in the hands of each voter.
Mariano Rivera remains the only player to obtain 100% of the votes of the BBWAA. The Panamanian appeared in the 425 ballots in 2019. Derek Jeter was chosen in 395 of 396 in 2020.
Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner were chosen by the BBWAA this year and will be exalted to the living room in Cooperstown on July 27 along with Dave Parker and Dick Allen, selected by the Committee of the Classic Era in December.
Suzuki was twice a batting champion of the American League and 10 times All-Star and won the Golden Glove as Golden Glove. 2018-19), the New York Yankees (2012-14) and Miami (2015-17).
It is perhaps the best contact batter of all time, with 1,278 hits in Japan and 3,089 in MLB, including a record of a season of 262 in 2004. Its total combined of 4,367 hits exceeds the major leagues record, the 4,256 of Pete Rose.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
