Ichiro Suzuki Pitching A Complete Game Shutout In A Girl's High School All-Star Game Isn't Cool, It's Incredibly Bizarre

Ichiro Suzuki may be 50-years-old and long removed from Major League Baseball, but he still finds ways to get the competitive juices flowing on the diamond, even if that means dominating high-school-aged girls.

Suzuki hosts an annual All-Star game in his home country of Japan, and during the game on Tuesday he didn't just play host, he played pitcher. The All-Star teams were made up of the top high-school girls in Japan, and then there was Suzuki, a future Hall of Famer.

Suzuki didn't just make a quick appearance for an inning or two to give the crowd a show as most would expect, instead, he threw 116 pitches while striking out nine batters in a complete game shutout.

Suzuki also hit a double while going 2-for-5 at the plate, but was also struck out once while looking.

I get that Ichiro is the definition of a living legend in Japan. Suzuki, former Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama, and Naomi Osaka are legitimate celebrities in the country and are celebrated beyond belief.

While that's all completely fair, so too is asking the question of what the hell is going on here.

So in Japan, the best high-school-aged girls in baseball get picked to play in Suzuki's All-Star game and are rewarded by having to step in the batter's box and just get absolutely hosed by the host of the event? Suzuki was throwing 86mph fastballs at these girls for crying out loud.

This isn't the first time Suzuki has pulled off this sort of thing either. During the 2021 edition of his All-Star game, he struck out 17 teenage girls on 147 pitches.

Based on a postgame quote from Suzuki after Tuesday's game, it's abundantly clear that the weirdness of this situation stems from him and him only.

The man compared getting a hit in his All-Star game against teenage girls to getting a hit in the bigs.

“Personally, I’m glad that it was a hit. I was so happy,” Ichiro told reporters after the game. “I’ve had some decent hits as a professional, so I was frustrated and frustrated. I set a goal of one as a batter no matter what. I’m so happy.”

It's unclear if Suzuki was being sarcastic with his comments, but given the fact we're talking about a man who refused to step off the mound in a girl's high school baseball game, I'm going to go ahead and assume he's being serious.

I understand things are done differently in Japan than they are in the United States, feel free to call me a dumb American all you want, but I'm going to stand by the fact that a 50-year-old former MLB star throwing complete game shutouts against high school girls is weird. And not just a little weird, incredibly weird.

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