09/17/2026
Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, both 52, put on uniforms at the Tokyo Dome on Sunday.
Matsui batted cleanup and played third base.
Ichiro pitched. All nine innings.
He threw 127 pitches, struck out 17 batters, walked nobody, and gave up five singles. Final score: 7–0.
No, this isn't an old clip. It happened three days ago.
The game is an annual showcase Ichiro hosts against the best high-school girls' baseball players in Japan, organized to grow women's baseball in a country where girls have had almost no path in the sport. Sunday was the sixth time it's been held, and roughly 25,000 people bought tickets.
Ichiro treats it like a real game. That's the whole idea.
Last year he threw a shutout with 14 strikeouts. This year he threw a shutout with 17. His fastball reached 136 km/h, about 85 mph.
He also led off and went 2-for-5 at the plate.
One Japanese fan wrote that what's most monstrous isn't the strikeouts — it's that after 127 pitches, his velocity and command never faded.
After the game he sat down and did a 30-minute talk show, joking the whole way through.
Last month, in Seattle, he hit eight home runs in the Mariners Alumni Home Run Derby.
"I wanted to see what my current limits were," he said Sunday, "and this gave me confidence in myself."
Ichiro has 4,367 professional hits. He went into the Hall of Fame last year. He has nothing left to prove.
He keeps proving things anyway.
