If you have children under ten, you are likely intimately familiar with the plot of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Disney mega-hit, Encanto.  For those of a different demographic (who have, therefore, never actually talked about Bruno), the story follows the magical Madrigal family, each of whom — other than the lovable protagonist, Mirabel — have been gifted a special power. Under the anxious eye of their Abuela, these powers become so intertwined with the characters’ sense of self, however, that the Madrigals begin to profoundly resent their gifts. As a result, the very foundation of the family and the fabric of the community that surrounds them, begins to crumble. The domineering power of these special talents had crippling consequences for the Madrigals. Every blessing, it seems, was also a curse. It isn’t until Mirabel persuades her family members that they are more than just their assigned gift that each Madrigal can achieve inner peace and family harmony can be restored.

I saw Encanto with my children in Seekonk, Massachusetts, in a theater with few adults.  However, when my eye caught that of another forty-something dad, I could tell that he was thinking the very same thing: this movie is about Ichiro Suzuki.  

Ichiro Suzuki is arguably the greatest hitter who has ever lived.  He is certainly the most prolific. If you include his 1,278 hits over nine seasons in the Japan Pacific League (which you should, to at least some extent), Ichiro collected 4,367 hits.  That’s 111 more than Pete Rose, who is nominally considered baseball’s all-time hit leader.   

Unlike Abuela, however, Nobuyuki Suzuki — Ichiro’s father — didn’t wait for a magical candle to bless his son into becoming the greatest slap hitter of all time. Nobuyuki initiated Ichiro’s baseball training when his son was a toddler. Every day, regardless of the weather, Nobuyuki subjected Ichiro to the same drills: 50 pitches, 200 soft-toss swings and 50 fungo drills. Then, later at night, Ichiro would take 250 to 300 swings on a pitching machine.  Ichiro was reconditioned out of his natural right-handedness so that he’d gain the few feet advantage to first base given to lefties.  

“Baseball player” was Ichiro’s assigned identity. Like Encanto’s Madrigal children, Ichrio was only one thing: singles hitter. Everything else was ignored or stripped away. Ichiro recalled only two or three incidents of playing with another child throughout his youth. Once, when he wanted a day off from the incessant, metronomic process of becoming Ichiro, he just sat down in centerfield and refused to play. His father responded by whizzing baseballs at his son. And when Nobuyuki turned over the training of his son to high school and professional coaches, he had one instruction: “No matter how good Ichiro is, don’t praise him. We have to make him spiritually strong.” In perhaps the most understated reflection on one’s childhood ever, Ichiro recalled, “It bordered on hazing and I suffered a lot.”

But here’s the thing: it also worked. Ichiro hit singles better than any player ever had. Four of the ten best seasons in that category belong to him. In 2004, when he hit 225 singles, he bested the previous record (which was one hundred and six years old!) by almost ten percent. As the San Francisco Chronicle put it, “There's nobody like Ichiro in either league — now or ever. He exists strictly within his own world, playing a game 100 percent unfamiliar to everyone else. The game has known plenty of 'slap' hitters, but none who sacrifice so much natural ability for the sake of the art. And he'll go deep occasionally in games, looking very much like someone who could do it again, often... [but] the man lives for hits, little tiny ones, and the glory of standing atop the world in that category.”  Ichiro won the American League batting title, the AL Rookie of the Year Award and the AL MVP Award in 2001, and he remains the only player in MLB history to win all three in his first season. In 2004, Ichiro collected 262 hits, surpassing the previously untouchable record George Sisler set in 1920. For ten years in a row, Ichiro amassed over 200 hits. Insanely, Ichiro only ended one game with a career batting average under .300 — his second when he went 0-4.  

And he couldn’t stop.  Even when he couldn’t produce at the same level — or even replacement level — he couldn’t stop playing. In 2017, 43-year-old Ichiro became the oldest player to start a game in centerfield since 1900. He only collected 50 hits and batted .255. In 2018, he signed another one-year contract with the Mariners. He prepared for each game with the intensity imprinted on him as a child. He carried his bats in a protective humidor case. Before going to sleep, he would swing his bat for ten minutes.  Some mornings he’d simply swing alone in the dark from 1 to 4 a.m. That season, he had nine hits and had a .205 average. By the beginning of 2019, Ichiro had played 27 seasons between Japan and MLB. On March 20th, with the Mariners invited to open the season at the Tokyo Dome, Ichiro played his final game. Afterwards, he retired as the oldest player in baseball.

Why did Ichiro keep playing? After the end of the 2017 season, when other players had left to fade into off-season relaxation, his teammate, Dee Gordon, heard the cracking sound of someone taking batting practice. It was, of course, forty-four year old Ichiro Suzuki.  "I really just hope he keeps playing," Gordon told a reporter, "because I don't want him to die. I believe he might die if he doesn't keep playing. What is Ichiro gonna do if he doesn't play baseball?"

Recently, Past Prime considered the final year of Eddie Murray’s career, when the Hall of Famer bounced between a stint in AAA and spot duty in the majors. Easing into the twilight of his career, quiet Eddie basked in the New Mexico sun, playing a game with aspiring kids who, by all accounts, adored him. It’s hard not to see Ichiro — pounding away in the batting cage — and Eddie as foils. One playing not to die, and one playing as part of life.  Perhaps the line between self-actualization and self-immolation is relatively subtle. In other words, it’s too bad Ichiro didn’t have Mirabel from Encanto to convince him by song that he’s more than just a slap hitter.  

We are all taught who we are as children, even if not as monomaniacally as Nobuyuki Suzuki.  By praise or by criticism, we learn what’s important in us, even from the most loving of parents. What parts we want to keep carrying as adults and what parts we want to shed is one of the central tasks of middle age. And how we answer that is the difference between playing in the sun or swinging a bat in the dark.

by Kevin Blake