SEATTLE (AP) — Oh, snap.
Like the Seattle sailors unveiled their third statue in franchise history outside T-Mobile Park, one of Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki, there was a blip.
A bronze statue depicting Suzuki in his famous battle pose was found to be defective when it was put on display Friday morning. Suzuki’s bat broke at the handle and the barrel veered to the right side.
After the ceremony, Suzuki joked that New York Yankees Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera got the best of him.
“I didn’t think Mariano would come here,” Suzuki said with a smile, “and break the bat.”
It didn’t take long for the Mariners to repair the statue; Suzuki’s bat was soon stood upright and reattached to the handle. Suzuki, who was included in the Hall of Fame last summer, he became just the third Mariners player to also have his number retired by the franchise last year, joining Ken Griffey Jr. (No. 24) and Edgar Martinez (No. 11).
Griffey and Martinez joined Suzuki outside T-Mobile Park on Friday, and all three pulled a tarp off the statue together. Suzuki made history last summer as the first Japanese-born player to be inducted and deserved into the Hall of Fame an almost unanimous 99.7% of the votes of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
As a jovial Suzuki saw it, the fact that his statue had an imperfection was only fitting.
“I was one vote short in the Hall of Fame,” Suzuki said. “Today the bat was broken. It lets me know that I’m still not there yet, that I still have to keep going. So this is a good example of that.”
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