One is a Mariners legend of the past, and the other is a superstar in the making.
And as Ichiro goes into the Mariners’ Hall of Fame on Saturday, and Julio Rodriguez keeps insinuating his way into the national consciousness, it’s both heartwarming and somehow fitting to know that the bond between these once and future kings of Seattle baseball is strong, and ever-growing.
“It happened so naturally that you don’t even have to say we have a special bond,” Ichiro said, speaking through interpreter Allen Turner. “It’s like it’s always been there. And maybe that is special, because it’s such a natural thing that just kind of came together. Maybe that’s what special is.”
It began in spring training of 2019, the pre-phenom phase of J-Rod’s career, when the wide-eyed 18-year-old was coming in from one of the back fields. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Ichiro, then 45 and a few weeks from retirement, taking swings in the cage. Rodriguez ran back to his locker, grabbed his phone and shyly approached Ichiro to ask for a photo. Ichiro obliged, and the resulting snapshot still has a coveted place in J-Rod’s collection.
The next spring, Rodriguez’s first in big-league camp, he found himself without a throwing partner one day and asked Ichiro if he would play catch with him. And thus was the next level of their relationship formed. They played catch every day thereafter in Arizona, and did so the next two springs as well, when Ichiro segued into the next phase of his career as a ”special assistant to the chairman” and de facto coach. One gets the feeling they will be catch partners for as long as the two remain in Seattle.
“I feel like, once you start with somebody playing catch, you stick with them,” Rodriguez said.
Gradually, Rodriguez felt comfortable enough with Ichiro to start giving him good-natured ribbing when he took him deep in batting practice, and to let his effervescent personality show itself despite being half Ichiro’s age. And to soak up the knowledge that the man with more than 3,000 hits, 500 stolen bases, two batting titles, the MLB season hits record and 10 Gold Gloves is eager to pass on.
Ichiro, who still dons a uniform for Mariners home games and takes part in pregame drills during the regular season, has a general rule: He won’t necessarily offer unsolicited advice to players, but if they approach him he will impart all the knowledge he can. Julio is not reluctant to do so and soak it all in — as he said, not just baseball but life.
“I would say our relationship is amazing,” Rodriguez said. “I feel like he’s somebody I can always rely on to ask anything about baseball, or whatever I need, honestly. It’s very impressive to have a legend like him hanging around us here. Ichiro is someone I look up to, but I feel like he’s somebody I can call a friend, too.”
Rodriguez said in past springs, Ichiro helped him on the proper footwork in center field to keep the ball in front of him. Earlier this year, Mariners manager Scott Servais said the two worked on how to subtly look back in the midst of a stolen-base attempt to see if the ball was put in play. Ichiro has also counseled Rodriguez on throwing mechanics and where to aim.
The Mariners’ Hall of Fame will not be Ichiro’s last induction. He will sail into Cooperstown on the first ballot when he becomes eligible in 2025. Thus, it is significant that he sees in Rodriguez a kindred spirit in work ethic, and a player who has a rare presence that can’t be taught. Even before Ichiro had seen Julio play, “you could tell there was something different, something special,” he said.
The first thing that struck him was the consistency of Rodriguez’s preparation, an Ichiro hallmark. As Servais said of Ichiro’s work habits, “It’s not for everybody, even though he thinks it is, and that everybody should be wired that way. It really isn’t, in my opinion; not everybody can function that way.”
But Rodriguez, who is proving himself to be a singular player in his own right, is one of them.
“I think one of the hardest things that a player has to do is do the same thing right every day, stay on schedule and prepare,” Ichiro said. “Julio has that at a young age. … I think that’s what separates him from the others.
“Of course, you can say he’s fast, he’s got power, he’s got a great arm. But what’s different about him is he’s able to do that every single day and be ready and be prepared.”
I reminded Ichiro that’s the same thing people always said about him. Surely, he must see a little bit of himself in the 21-year-old rookie. Ichiro smiled.
“At 21, I don’t know if I was prepared like that. Usually in my first year, even here in the big leagues, I was trying to find out things and trying many different things. And it just seems like he already knows it. He already has it. And he’s doing it. And so it’s really interesting to see. Like, where do you learn? How did he get that?”
It’s one of the mysteries of the game, just as Ichiro’s unique style confounded many when he arrived in Seattle in 2001 after a brilliant stretch in Japan. He was the American League’s MVP that year — the last season the Mariners made the playoffs — en route to a 19-year MLB career that ended in an emotional farewell in Tokyo during the Mariners’ season-opening series in 2019.
Could Ichiro see his young protégé one day being honored by the Mariners as he will be Saturday? Or dare we say it, in Cooperstown?
“There’s not really many guys that have the potential where you can say, ‘This guy can be a Hall of Famer,’ ” Ichiro replied. “He’s one of the very few that are playing that you can say he has the potential to get there.”
Ichiro didn’t have that epiphany watching one particular Rodriguez play or at-bat. It was a cumulative assessment as his rookie year has unfolded.
“Just watching him play, the way he carries himself — when he makes a good play or does something great, you don’t see him showboat,” Ichiro said. “He is just the type of guy you enjoy watching. There is something about him that is just fun to watch.”
In that regard, Rodriguez is proudly carrying on an Ichiro tradition.