Max Clark’s first big-league stadium day at T-Mobile Park brought the moment he had been waiting for and the one he did not expect. The 21-year-old saw Ichiro Suzuki tracking balls in center field on Tuesday and called it his first “Oh My God” moment after his Major League debut in Sacramento last weekend.
Clark said the scene hit him the moment he stepped onto the field. “It was a very surreal moment walking out there and seeing him still taking BP and throwing. Just unbelievable. You see this huge stadium and then in center field, Ichiro is tracking balls,” he said. He added that he had already ordered a frame for the autographed Ichiro game jersey and knew exactly where it would go: “This is going in my man cave, for sure.”
That reaction made sense because Ichiro was never just another former star to Clark. He said Bryce Harper was his No. 1 favorite player, but Ichiro was second, and the link ran through family as much as baseball. Clark said his brother Mason was 31 and that Mason was Ichiro’s favorite player, which was part of why Clark started wearing No. 51 as a young player. “He was my brother’s favorite player,” Clark said. “Mason is 31 and I just wanted to be like Mason. Ichiro was his favorite player.”
AJ Hinch said he was going to set up a meeting between Clark and Ichiro on Wednesday or Thursday, continuing a habit he says he has built over the years of connecting young players with the names they grew up watching. Hinch said he once caught enough games behind Ichiro to be able to say hello to him, and he has done similar introductions before, including bringing Jackson Jobe to Gerrit Cole before a spring game in Tampa.
That is where the story gets a little less clean than the dream would like. Clark said he was looking forward to meeting Ichiro later in the week, but the sighting on Tuesday was the moment that landed hardest, and it is the only part of the encounter that is certain so far. For a player who said he could not get a word out when he met Bryce Harper two years ago during a spring training game in Clearwater, the chance to stand in front of another idol may matter almost as much as the call-up itself.
Clark said he was not surprised by how much the moment stayed with him. “We grew up watching his games and we played every video game with Ichiro in it,” he said, and then he pointed back to the jersey as if the keepsake already had a permanent place in his life. The next step is the one Hinch is trying to arrange, and if it happens on Wednesday or Thursday, Clark will finally get the introduction that turned a first big-league stadium appearance into something closer to a childhood memory made real.
