History could repeat itself as Seiya Suzuki returns home for Tokyo Series

TOKYO – Hideki Matsui crushed a long fly ball into the Tokyo Dome’s right-field stands, giving the Yankees a 5-1 lead over the Rays. And from inside the stadium, a nine-year old Seiya Suzuki watched the ball fly.

“That stuck with me, and it was a great moment,” Suzuki said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry.

Watching that 2004 season-opening series, and considering Matsui’s career in NPB and MLB, Suzuki also was struck by the difference between the two leagues. At the time, he didn’t think playing stateside would be a possibility for him. He wouldn’t embrace that dream until he was in his early 20’s.

This week, Suzuki returned to his hometown of Tokyo, representing the Cubs in his fourth MLB season.

“My goal is to stay in this league and play for as long as I can, until my body stops working,” Suzuki said. “Here [in MLB] it’s so hard with age, but also, whenever your performance drops, there’s always that next guy up.”

During the Cubs’ workout Friday, Suzuki crushed one ball after another. With a crowd of about 10,000 looking on, he sent a batting practice home run deep into the left-field Tokyo Dome seats.

Though Shohei Ohtani is the biggest draw in the Tokyo Series between the Cubs and Dodgers, Suzuki is still a celebrity in Japan.

Fellow outfielder Ian Happ witnessed that dynamic when he and his wife honeymooned in Japan last year and met up with Suzuki.

“He’s so famous, it’s hard to walk around type of thing,” Happ said. “Which is, for us as baseball players, hard to fathom. You could walk around downtown Chicago and you’d go all afternoon without anybody saying anything. That’s not Seiya’s reality there, which is pretty crazy. It would be like a movie star walking down the street.”

Suzuki laughed at Happ’s retelling.

“I would say that’s an exaggeration,” Suzuki said. “I can walk around. I think the big difference between the US and Japan is [in the US], the distance between the fan and the player is relatively close. You can come to spring training, you can talk to your favorite players. And so if you see them out and about, you’ll recognize them, but that’s about it. But in Japan, because the distance between the fan and the players is so much bigger, it’s a rarity when you get to see them. So I think that that has to do with it.”

He admitted that he does appear on billboards, as Happ said. But while advertisements featuring Ohtani are practically inescapable, Suzuki’s are more selective.

“You can’t walk around and not see Shohei, so whenever I see one, I hit the board,” he joked, acting out the scene.

Suzuki isn’t ceding Tokyo over to Ohtani so easily. Ohtani is from Iwate, a prefecture in the northeastern part of Japan.

“The Tokyo Dome, that’s where I’m from,” Suzuki said, “so I think a lot of the fans are going to be there to cheer me on.”

He smiled.

Ohtani, who?

While Suzuki may not actually believe that the Tokyo Series crowd will favor the Cubs, he’s mindful of his place in history as Japanese baseball steps into the spotlight.

He remembers watching Ichiro Suzuki play in MLB, the first Japanese-born position player to do so. Seiya and Ichiro met in Seattle last year when the Cubs played the Mariners. Seiya said he was nervous, and thrilled that Ichiro knew who he was.

In January, Ichiro Suzuki became the first Asian-born player to be elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“To simply put it, just amazing,” Seiya Suzuki said. “You realize the tremendous amount of work he put in to be that great. But it’s also interesting because, for me, it’s hard to relate to, because I feel like that’s an achievement that I may not ever get to.”

Hall of Fame or not, Suzuki can still make an impact. And a couple decades from now, maybe another major-leaguer from the area will be talking about attending the Tokyo Series as a kid and watching Suzuki hit.

“Being able to watch Japanese players from MLB play in front of you in Japan, I think that’s just going to close the distance between what you can do, what your dream is of playing,” Suzuki said. “So for not just me, but all five of the Japanese players who are going to get to play in Japan, I think it’s a great opportunity to leave that impression and give them the motivation.”