Japan

Ichiro Suzuki is an American Major League Baseball player of Japanese origin. He was born on October 22, 1973, in Kasugai, Japan. He originally played for Orix Blue Wave, a professional Japanese baseball team, from 1992 to 2000. Suzuki moved to the United States, in 2001. He was taken as a right fielder by the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team, who paid $13.125 million to acquire Suzuki from the Orix team. From a right fielder, he changed to a center fielder. Suzuki is the first MLB player to have moved from Japan. Suzuki graduated from the Aikoudai Meiden High School, in March 1992 and made his Pacific League Debut in the same year. In Japan, Suzuki won seven consecutive batting titles and had a batting average of .353. After his 1995 game in Japan, where he hit 25 home runs and stole 49 bases, the Japanese press began calling Suzuki the 'Human Batting Machine'. After moving to the Mariners, his good form continued. In 2004, Ichiro Suzuki set many new MLB records, one of which was a new single-season MLB record of 262 hits. He won five consecutive Golden Gloves in MLB games. In 2005, he recorded his fifth consecutive 200-hit season and became the first Major League player to record at least 200 hits in first five seasons. Ichiro Suzuki currently stays in Kobe, Japan, with his wife.