The Japanese superstar more than made the cut for Cooperstown enshrinement — along with ex-Yankees great CC Sabathia and former Mets closer Billy Wagner — coming up just one vote short

Ichiro Suzuki has become the first Japanese player to make it to baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is likely to be the next.

Ichiro Suzuki is all about baseball, but he is much more than that at home in Japan. Ichiro is a wellspring of national pride — like Shohei Ohtani now — and his fame across the Pacific was therapeutic as the national economy sputtered through the so-called lost decades.