Baseball: Ichiro's appeal went beyond numbers to baseball's essence

Ichiro Suzuki sped into the U.S. National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday the same way he electrified baseball since he was a rising young star in Japan 30 years earlier by highlighting the absolute essence of the game.Others have had bigger MLB careers, but few players have made the game his own in the way Suzuki did. When he stepped into the batter's box, Ichiro turned back the game's clock to when baseball was about putting the ball in play, outrunning, and outthinking the opposition.Instead of trying to drive every pitch over the wall or work walks, Ichiro was a throwback to baseball's…READ FULL ARTICLE