With baseball players from the famous to the fringe coming under a performance-enhancing cloud, Ichiro Suzuki is the antidrug.
Suzuki, the sinewy Seattle Mariners center fielder, would contend that his strength is generated primarily from the curry rice balls that his wife, Yumiko, makes for him before every game. Suzuki is a natural, not just a result of what he consumes but of the way he plays.
The Japanese-born Suzuki, in his eighth season in the major leagues, is on the verge of several significant achievements. He entered the season 130 hits short of 3,000 for his two-country career and could become the youngest player in history to reach that professional milestone, although it would not be an official major league record. He is also approaching the most career hits for a Japanese player, needing 216.
In addition, he is seeking 200 hits for a record eighth consecutive season, which would tie him with the turn-of-the-19th-century star Wee Willie Keeler, who did it from 1894 to 1901.
Though separated by an ocean and a century, Suzuki and Keeler are remarkably similar. From the Baltimore chop to the Seattle slap, they have a common resolve: hit ’em where they ain’t. Keeler finished his 19-year career (1892-1910) with a .3412 batting average. Suzuki, including his time in Japan, entered the season with a 16-year average of .3419.
“Both players felt like they were the catalysts,” said Tom Shieber, the senior curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. “Their job was to get on base.”
The two began their professional careers 100 years apart, Keeler in 1892 and Suzuki in 1992. They are considered small for their eras, Keeler was 5 feet 4 inches and 140 pounds; Suzuki is 5-11 and 172. They started as right fielders, they throw and bat from the left side and, most significant, they rely on exquisite bat control and fleet feet for success.
Both were enormously satisfied with the simple single. Keeler set the major league standard for singles in a season with 206 in 1898. That record lasted until Suzuki rapped out 225 in 2004.
Keeler finished his career with 2,513 singles, 86 percent of his hits. Suzuki entered the season with 1,291 singles in the United States, 81 percent of his hits.
Each player led the majors in singles seven times. Suzuki occupies four spots among baseball’s top 10 for singles in a season. Keeler has three top 10s.
Interestingly, the top 27 spots for singles in a season — and 35 of the first 36 — are held by a left-handed batter or a switch-hitter. Left-handed hitters have a natural edge with their proximity to first base, but Suzuki’s hitting style appears to give him an extra head start.
“When he shifts his weight toward first like he does, it seems like he gets a couple extra steps on guys who are left-handed,” Boston Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell said last season. “That’s where the shortstop has to play a little more in and the third baseman has to honor the bunt more. It impacts defenses tremendously.”
In an interview last season, Suzuki said that when he scanned the field before entering the batter’s box, he enjoyed the uncertainty and anxiety around the infield.
“For me, that’s something that’s actually comforting,” Suzuki said through an interpreter. “If I see them all in the same position every time I come to bat, that would not be something I would like to see. When I see that, I can tell they are thinking about me and putting me into the equation. When I sense that they dislike the situation, it’s easier for me to play.”
Keeler also took a cunning approach to hitting. According to Peter Morris, the author of “A Game of Inches,” an exhaustive historical reference book on baseball, Keeler used a very heavy bat “and choked up significantly more than anyone else during the 1890s.”
Like Suzuki, he looked for seams in the defense to direct the ball.
And like Suzuki, Keeler used his speed. He and his Baltimore Orioles teammates in the early 1890s used the technique of bouncing the ball high in front of the plate and reaching first base before the fielder could retrieve it. It became known as the Baltimore chop.
“Keeler hardly struck out at all,” Morris said by telephone from his home in Lansing, Mich. “In the 1890s, we do not have much in the way of strikeout statistics, but it’s clear he had fabulous hand-eye coordination.”
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