When Bryan Woo gets to the field every day, Ichiro Suzuki is already there. Taking batting practice. Shagging fly balls. Playing catch. He hangs around after too, offering any advice he can to the current generation of Mariners players.

“Lou Piniella was very skeptical,” said Larry Stone, a Seattle Times baseball writer who has covered Ichiro’s career extensively. “That spring training, Ichiro started off not pulling the ball, not driving the ball. And Lou was like, ‘Who is this guy? When is he going to show me something?’”

Christian Yelich brings a different perspective than Carroll or Kwan. Yelich played three seasons as Ichiro’s teammate in Miami. He remembered playing catch with Ichiro the day after he collected his 3,000th hit in the majors, one of those pinch-me kind of moments.

There he was, in the flesh, at the Otesaga Resort Hotel on the eve of his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame: Ichiro Suzuki himself. So strong is Ichiro’s aura that even two of the game

This weekend, Mariners legend Ichiro Suzuki will become the first Asian player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.