Ichiro Suzuki proves he can still mash home runs — and break windows — at age 50

There are a lot of words you can use to describe retired outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, but there’s one word that describes him better than almost any other: legend.

Ichiro, now 50, spent last weekend coaching young ballplayers at Asahikawa Higashi High School in Hokkaido, Japan. While showing players how he hits, Ichiro got ahold of a ball and sent it flying over the fence that separates the field from the school. It ended up breaking a window and flying into an unsuspecting math class.

Since 2020, the year after he retired from MLB, Ichiro has been going from high school to high school in Japan, coaching young ballplayers on hitting and other aspects of the game. He’s now an elder statesman, passing on knowledge he gained during his 19-year MLB career (spent mostly with the Seattle Mariners and Miami Marlins) and his eight-year career in Japan’s top professional league, Nippon Pro Baseball.

But this elder statesman is obviously still a kid at heart. After accidentally breaking that window with the power of his bat, Ichiro’s reaction was exactly what you’d see from a 14-year-old who did the same thing: excitement, guilt, and pride. Even at 50, the legendary Ichiro is still showing us things we’ve never seen before.

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