Today, Baseball’s Hall of Fame welcomed their class of 2025. They included a hitting machine, a big Yankees right-hander, and a short, powerful closer. Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, starting pitcher CC Sabathia, and reliever Billy Wagner will join Classic Baseball Era Committee electees Dave Parker and Dick Allen at the induction ceremony at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, NY, on July 27.
Ichiro and Sabathia were inducted in their first year of eligibility, and Wagner’s was his 10th and final try to be elected through the BBWAA process. Just missing the cut was third baseman Carlos Beltran, who was seeking entrance to the Hall on his third try.
Legendary Hitter Inchiro
When you look in the dictionary under the definition of the word hitter, it is accompanied by a big picture of Ichiro. He is one of only five players with 3,000 hits, a .300 average, and 500 stolen bases. The others are Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Paul Molitor, and Honus Wagner. He won an MVP award, was named to 10 All-Star games, was a 10-time Gold Glove winner, and won two batting championships.
He finished with 3,089 MLB hits. This, coupled with his 1,278 base hits in Japan’s Pacific League, makes him the all-time professional hits leader with 4,367, bettering Pete Rose’s 4,256 total. In fact, this was a double celebration month for Ichiro. Just last week, he was elected in his first year of eligibility to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in recognition of his accomplishments with the Orix Blue Wave, during which he won three league MVP awards and was a seven-time batting champion.
Ichiro received 99.7 percent of the votes. He was the first non-pitcher Japanese player in Major League Baseball history and now becomes the first Asian-born player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Baseball Workhorse CC Sabathia
Yankees great CC Sabathia became the first pitcher to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee since Mariano Rivera and Roy Halladay in 2019. During his prime, Sabathia was a true workhorse, pitching more innings than any pitcher who has debuted since 1989. He finished with 251 wins, 3,093 strikeouts, and 3,577 1/3 innings pitched. He was the AL Cy Young Award winner with Cleveland in 2007 and six-time All-Star.
He was part of the last Yankees World Series-winning team in 2009. In 11 seasons with the Yankees, Sabathia posted a 134-88 record with a 3.81 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP. In the twilight of his career, he transformed from being a power pitcher to one who relied on the control of his pitches. Sabathia retired with more than 250 career wins and 3,000 strikeouts. He is one of only 15 pitchers in major league history to reach both of those marks.
His intensity and leadership were on display in his final start of 2018. Pitching for the Yankees in the bottom of the sixth inning, Sabathia was ejected from the game after intentionally hitting Tampa Bay Rays catcher Jesús Sucre with his 55th pitch of the night. He was retaliating for a pitch from Andrew Kittredge that had sailed behind Austin Romine in the top of the sixth. He was scheduled to receive a $500,000 performance bonus if he completed two more innings. The Yankees honored the bonus nonetheless.
Ace Reliever Wagner
With his induction, Billy Wagner becomes only the ninth closer to gain entry into baseball’s hallowed halls. Though he only stood 5-foot-10, his 100-mph fastball and deadly slider led him to a strikeout rate of 33.2%, the highest of any pitcher with at least 900 innings.
In his 16 major league seasons, he tallied 422 saves and 1,196 strikeouts in 993 innings. He was a seven-time All-Star and still holds the Houston Astros franchise record with 225 saves. Billy is considered the most dominant left-handed reliever of all time. He becomes the third Astros player elected to the Hall, joining two former teammates, Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. Wagner said of his long wait to reach the Hall.
“It’s not been an easy 10 years. “The only thing that I thought I did well was I didn’t blow a save for 10 years, so I thought that might have had an input on being able to get into this.”
