Ichiro Suzuki has become the first Japanese player to make it to baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is likely to be the next.

Ichiro will go into the Hall of Fame as professional baseball’s all-time leader in hits with 4,367 (3,089 in MLB and 1,278 in Japan) — more even than Pete Rose's 4,256. He broke George Sisler’s single-season hits mark of 257 in 2004. The new mark is 262.

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he is much more than that at home in Japan. Ichiro is a wellspring of national pride — like Shohei Ohtani now —