Former Major League Baseball (MLB) and Japanese National Team legend Ichiro Suzuki just threw a complete game shutout against a team of high school girls in Japan … and he didn’t even have to identify as a woman to do it.
50-year-old Ichiro pitched a complete-game shutout against a high school girls team 🔥 pic.twitter.com/gPQP9L2iTp
— Baseball Bros (@BaseballBros) November 21, 2023
The 50-year-old Ichiro tossed the gem during the third annual Ichiro All Star Game, an event he started to help encourage more women in Japan to take up the sport of baseball, according to CNN.
While some would argue that the surefire future MLB hall-of-famer should have gone easy on the girls, his competitive spirit compelled him to pitch all nine innings of the game, en route to a 116-pitch, five-hit performance in which he struck out nine batters, according to the MLB website. (RELATED: REPORT: MLB Team Reaches Massive Market-Setting Contract With Star Pitcher)
It’s actually hilarious to go out of your way to completely dominate a group of high school girls. It’s reminiscent of some of the all-time great, “Why are you even doing this?” performances, like when Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones visited kids with cancer in the hospital and proceeded to absolutely crush one of them in the NCAA Football video game by a laughable 98-35 score.
Man I wish everyone stop saying I beat a kid in the hospital 91-35…. It was 98-35, had 91 with 1:26 left in the 4th pic.twitter.com/TAJxefv5A4
— Cardale Jones (@CJ1two) February 10, 2015
You’ve gotta give the girls some credit, though. Ichiro, who was certainly no pitcher (though he did log one inning of relief pitching with the Miami Marlins at the end of his career) was a truly prolific hitter, recording the most hits in professional baseball history between his time in the MLB and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League, per the MLB website.
Yet despite his hitting prowess, one of the girls, Ryona Domae, actually managed to strike him out.
“I typically have very few strike outs. You should be proud of yourself,” Ichiro told Domae, according to CNN.