Ichiro Suzuki isn’t one to say much, but when he does, he tends to make it count.
At his Hall of Fame induction over the weekend, the longtime Seattle Mariners outfielder — best known for holding the MLB single-season hits record — reminded everyone he also spent three seasons with the Miami Marlins. And during his speech, he took a cheeky shot at the team and their former front office, which quickly became prime social media fodder.
“I appreciate David Samson and Mike Hill for coming today,” he said of the Marlins’ former president and general manager. “Honestly, when you guys called to offer me a contract for 2015, I had never heard of your team.”
Samson, who now hosts Nothing Personal with David Samson and makes regular appearances with Meadowlark Media, addressed the dig Tuesday on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. And while he insisted there were no hard feelings, it’s clear the line perhaps grazed a nerve.
“You hear the Marlins joke and I immediately thought, ‘My God, anything other than that,’ because you could just tell that people were going to think that was serious,” said Samson,” but it wasn’t. We won the World Series in ’03, folks. He was in his prime in ’03. He knew the Marlins… He faced us. He played against us. I then had it checked; he was like 8-for-40 against us. We had him dead to rights. And believe me, he keeps track of every at-bat.
“So, what I then realized is he wanted to let people know a funny side he has to go with how important his message was during his speech, which I think is one of the most viral and best speeches I’ve ever heard a Hall of Famer give. I had a little PTSD because the Marlins are the butt of people’s jokes, though we do have two world championships in our franchise history. And we’ve been to the playoffs recently, twice since COVID. All of this talk that the Marlins are ‘such a failure,’ I just don’t buy. But I think now people realize that, of course, Ichiro was joking.”
Most people probably understood Ichiro was joking. But when you’re perennially at the bottom of the attendance rankings, have a reputation for trading stars before they get paid, and haven’t been culturally relevant since Hanley Ramirez, even a light jab tends to hit a little harder. Especially when it comes from Ichiro.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.