Among baseball's newest Hall of Famers, Ichiro Suzuki came one vote shy of a unanimous election – something that has only happened once in history. At a media conference in Cooperstown on Thursday, the first-ever Japanese Hall of Famer joked about the lone member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America who did not include him on their 2025 ballot.

There was no surprise when it was announced that Ichiro Suzuki would enter the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. What was a surprise, though, was that one baseball writer didn’t think Ichiro deserved first-ballot consideration.