Ichiro missing unanimous induction proves that Hall of Fame needs a serious shake-up

In the lead-up to the reveal of the Baseball Hall of Fame's class of 2025, one thing seemed more or less certain: Ichiro Suzuki was going to earn induction in his first year on the ballot, a fitting reward for a career that featured an AL MVP, 10 All-Star nods, 10 Gold Glove Awards, more than 3,000 hits and countless jaw-dropping highlights. The question wasn't whether Ichiro was going to make it to Cooperstown; he's Ichiro, for goodness sake. Rather, the question was whether he would do so unanimously — becoming just the second player ever to do so, after New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera back in 2019.

Right up until the moment of truth Tuesday night, it seemed like the legendary outfielder might pull it off. According to Ryan Thibodeaux's BBHOF Tracker, just over 55.1 percent of the ballots had been made public ahead of the broadcast, and every single one of them had checked the box next to Ichiro's name. But when it came time to reveal the vote, it turned out that Ichiro had fallen short — exactly one vote short, to be precise. Instead, Ichiro will have to settle for 99.7 percent, a mark that leaves him in a tie for second place on the all-time leaderboard with Rivera's teammate, Derek Jeter.

Ichiro's legacy didn't need one more vote to secure it. He's one of the very greatest hitters the game has ever seen, and when he takes his rightful place in Cooperstown this summer, no one will be thinking about exactly what percentage of the vote he earned. But it's still a shame, the denial of a deserved honor from a singular baseball superstar. And even more importantly, it shows just how far the BBWAA, and baseball media, still has to go.

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Ichiro Hall of Fame vote offers yet more proof that Cooperstown can't get out of its own way

The Hall of Fame and its voting body have come a long way in recent years. Once upon a time, a not-insignificant bloc of voters refused to consider a candidate in his first year on the ballot out of principle, and it's undeniably a good thing that the BBWAA has reconsidered its definition of greatness and done more to make the players themselves the stories.

But it's also undeniable that there's still work to be done. There is, put simply, not a single argument for leaving Ichiro out of the Baseball Hall of Fame, nor is there an argument that he wasn't one of the 10 most deserving players on this year's ballot. To leave him out anyway is either clinging to an outdated notion of what the Hall means or sheer hubris, and I'm honestly not sure which is worse. Baseball has long done itself no favors with how it markets itself, and how the people paid to cover it present it to fans around the country. As long as naysayers for the sake of naysaying are still considered worthy of judging the game's greatest players, that problem isn't going anywhere.