Baseball hit No. 255, like 52 others by Ichiro Suzuki this season, didn't reach the outfield grass. No. 256 came on a single to right.
In a homeric age agog over brute power, Suzuki's attack on George Sisler's 84-year-old, single-season major league baseball record of 257 hits is filled with slap shots that make many fans yawn.
No one gasps over choppers. There is no grandeur in bouncers and bloopers. His hits don't rise like rainbows, ricochet off seats, splash into a bay.
Yet all those dinky singles are as deft as quick, creative brushstrokes by an artistic genius, in this case one who wields a bat and deserves to be ranked among the greatest hitters in baseball history.
With three games to go at home against Texas, the small, slim Seattle Mariners right fielder undoubtedly will claim one of MLB's oldest records.
That the record was neither revered nor remembered by many fans so familiar with magical home run numbers -- 60 (Babe Ruth), 61 (Roger Maris), 70 (Mark McGwire) and 73 (Barry Bonds) -- does not diminish its significance.
The reverse is true: Sisler's 257 was so far out there, and so long in standing, it is amazing to consider that the likes of ex-Reds slugger Pete Rose, former Twins infielder Rod Carew, and ex-Yankee Wade Boggs couldn't reach it.
Suzuki has carved out a unique place in the game and become one of those rare players who is known simply by his first name. He is Ichiro, the quiet, graceful megastar of Japan and Seattle whose bat does most of his talking.
Each plate appearance is a ritual -- the slow, circular sweep of his black bat, the pose with the bat head pointing toward center, his tug on the right shoulder of his shirt. He is a study in repetition and concentration.
With the usual horde of Japanese media watching and photographing him in Oakland, his bat rapped just a little the last couple of days -- one hit in the Mariners' 4-2 victory on Wednesday and another in a 3-2 loss on Thursday. His batting average slid a tad to .371.
No. 255 was one more modest stroke of genius by the left-hander -- a bouncer the opposite way in the fifth inning. Shortstop Bobby Crosby dashed to his right to field the ball cleanly, but his throw had no chance of getting Suzuki, whose speed afoot is as critical to his record pursuit as his uncanny hand-eye coordination at the plate.
The average major leaguer takes around 4.3 seconds to run to first. Suzuki, all of 1.76m and 76kg, does it in 3.6 seconds, which accounts for a lot of his infield hits.
During his 1-for-3 Wednesday, Suzuki didn't get many chances to hit. He walked in the first inning after being greeted by boos and was hit in the back by a pitch in the ninth. He struck out swinging in the third in a rare moment of awkwardness when he was fooled by a good outside curveball.
The at-bat that was the most fascinating and most pivotal in the game didn't add to his hit total and won't look like anything but an ordinary out in the box score -- a grounder to second base in the eighth inning.
Yet there was Suzuki whipping his bat around to foul off pitch after pitch, backing out of the way of a 100mph fastball by Rich Harden, until he grounded out on the 13th pitch to lead off the inning.
All the effort Harden put into that confrontation wore him down. Randy Winn followed with an infield single and Bret Boone doubled to left to send Harden to the showers. Oakland's bullpen couldn't hold the Mariners, who scored three runs for a 4-2 lead.
The Athletics bore down on Suzuki on Thursday, holding him to a 1-for-5 game, with two strikeouts.
Three years ago, Suzuki set the major league rookie record for hits in a season -- 242 -- after passing the previous mark of 233 set by Shoeless Joe Jackson with Cleveland way back in 1911.
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