An Ode to Ichiro

A week ago today, Ichiro Suzuki hung up his cleats and accepted a role in the Mariners’ front office. This has led me to reflect on his fascinating career, and consider what it can teach me about education.

For those unaware, Ichiro grew up in Japan, where he spent the first decade of his professional baseball career before crossing the Pacific to join the Mariners in 2001. He immediately caught the majors by storm with his unorthodox batting approach. Just check out his swing:

You see him bailing out to first base half-way through his swing. You see his neglecting to leverage the lower half of his body to put power behind his swing. In short, you see him breaking almost every rule your little league coach taught you. This is a player whose aim is not to hit the ball over the fence, but to get on base as often and quickly as possible. Which is fascinating, when you consider the era in which he entered the majors. Here’s a chart from Baseball Reference of home runs throughout the years:

Throughout his career, from his MVP season in 2001 to his age 40 season where he hit 291 with a 350 OBP, Ichiro has always been Ichiro. If a coach told him to stay rooted in the box, crouch low, and use an upper-cut swing to drive the ball harder, he probably wouldn’t have been successful. Likewise, if in 2001 the Mariners front office looked towards Ichiro’s success and told DH Edgar Martinez, a prolific power hitter, to mimic Ichiro’s swing, Martinez wouldn’t have ended up a hall of fame candidate.

This all leads me to wonder whether our education system allows for Ichiros. School, like baseball, is a game. There are rules, both written and unwritten, that kids have to learn how to follow and manipulate. Some of these are to ensure a safe, supportive, and productive learning environment. Yet some are there simply because they’ve always been there. What happens to those that approach the game just a little differently? What do we do with those whose talents don’t necessarily fit our game plan? Do we change our coaching, or do we ask the students (or staff, for that matter) to change themselves?

So moving forward, when I see students or staff approach the game a little differently, I’m going to remind myself of Ichiro.