25-07-2025
When he didn't pick Ichiro for Rookie of the Year, a writer became the story
CLEVELAND — In January, when the Baseball Hall of Fame balloting results were released, and Ichiro Suzuki was not a unanimous selection, a longtime Cleveland sportswriter was quick to clarify: It wasn't him this time.
Chris Assenheimer of the Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria, Ohio, has been in that lonely position before — as the only voter to snub the prolific Seattle Mariners right fielder more than two decades ago, in the 2001 Rookie of the Year vote.
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Twenty-four years ago, Ichiro captivated Major League Baseball with a sterling rookie season. Now, he's headed to Cooperstown as a near-unanimous selection, left off the ballot of only one anonymous voter out of a pool of 394. Ichiro said in January he wants to 'have a drink' and a 'good chat' with the sole dissenter who prevented him from becoming the second unanimous selection (along with New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera) in the history of the Hall of Fame.
Assenheimer would love to take up Ichiro on his offer and reminisce over some Bud Lights about a similar ordeal nearly a quarter-century ago.
Bud Geracie, longtime columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, wrote in a November 2001 piece: 'Chris Assenheimer is the guy who didn't vote Ichiro Rookie of the Year, and boy does he look like one.' That dig was scooped up by a wire service and printed in newspapers across the country, including the L.A. Times.
'The joke is,' Assenheimer says now, in his 29th season on the Cleveland baseball beat, 'he was somehow AL MVP but not a unanimous Rookie of the Year.'
Ichiro couldn't have scripted a better first year in Major League Baseball.
After nine seasons, three MVP awards and seven batting titles in Japan's Pacific League, he joined the Mariners, who paid the Orix Blue Wave about $13 million and guaranteed Ichiro another $14 million. He was the first position player from Japan to sign a big-league contract, and he wasted no time in delivering on it.
'You knew Ichiro was going to be a star,' Assenheimer said.
With a .350 average, he joined Tony Oliva (1964) as the only rookies since the turn of the 20th century to win a batting title. He set a rookie record with 242 hits, the most by anyone since Bill Terry and Chuck Klein in 1930. Only Ichiro himself has eclipsed that total since, with his MLB-record 262 in 2004.
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He became the second rookie to win MVP (Fred Lynn, 1975) as he fueled Seattle to a record-tying 116 wins under manager Lou Piniella. The Mariners, even after departures in previous years of Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, reached the ALCS, where they fell to the dynastic Yankees.
The Mariners hosted the All-Star Game that July. Ichiro immediately emerged as one of baseball's central attractions.
Forget about the Rookie of the Year race. Ichiro planted himself in the conversation about the top players in the sport.
'To me, it was common sense,' Assenheimer said. 'The guy was not a rookie.'
Assenheimer stood in the Cleveland Indians' clubhouse one day during the 2001 ALDS — they were the Mariners' opening-round opponent, coincidentally — and discussed his recently submitted Rookie of the Year ballot with a colleague. He had placed Cleveland pitcher CC Sabathia first, Ichiro second and Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano third.
The other writer shot him a look and said, 'You're going to get some s—.'
During the second week of November 2001, Assenheimer traveled to Houston for an anniversary trip with his then-wife, staying with another couple they knew. He took a call from a colleague who wrote for the Associated Press. That reporter quipped it was 'the lowest point' of his journalism career as he informed Assenheimer he was the lone Sabathia backer and asked him for a quote for a story.
Later that night, Assenheimer and his wife were lying on the couch, watching a late-night edition of SportsCenter when, as Assenheimer recalls, anchor Stuart Scott announced Ichiro had received every first-place tally but one, thanks to a rogue voter who instead opted for Sabathia. Scott turned to his broadcast partner, Linda Cohn, and asked where she thought that voter resided.
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'They were calling me a homer and then (Scott) ripped into a diatribe, looking into the camera,' Assenheimer said. 'He's like, 'Chris, get over yourself. Don't tell us what you think the rules should be. Vote how the rules are.''
When they mentioned Assenheimer by name, the couple they were staying with screamed from upstairs. A whirlwind few days of interviews and insults was soon underway.
Assenheimer's stance is simple, one he maintains 24 years later: Ichiro was not a rookie. He was an accomplished, award-winning player in a different league on the other side of the globe who had taken his talents to North America.
Here's the quote Assenheimer supplied the AP in 2001: 'I just felt that Sabathia better met the criteria of what a rookie is in the truest sense of the word. That's nothing against Ichiro.'
Here's how he feels about it after 24 years of reflecting: 'He was a seven-time All-Star (in Japan). They gave him (and his team $27 million) to sign. It was ridiculous.'
Here's the thing: Ichiro, who collected a $75,000 bonus for winning, actually agreed with him… to an extent.
'I was a little embarrassed to be called a rookie here in the United States,' he said through an interpreter at the time. 'I was so relieved today when I heard this announcement I won the Rookie of the Year award because I felt this was an award I should have won without any doubt. If I won this award, I had wanted to win unanimously.'
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published the headline, 'Ichiro honored, irked.' It takes a special set of circumstances for someone to feel both of those emotions simultaneously.
Assenheimer's one regret is that he didn't omit Ichiro entirely. He placed him second, behind only Sabathia, who went 17-5 with a 4.39 ERA in his age-20 season.
'I'll remember his numbers forever,' Assenheimer said. 'I would've liked his ERA to be a little lower.'
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Assenheimer didn't take the stand he intended to: that Ichiro didn't fit the qualifications of a rookie. Instead, his ballot made it seem like he thought Ichiro was simply the second-best rookie performer.
'I shouldn't have even put him on the ballot,' Assenheimer said. 'But I guess I was thinking, 'OK, well, this is what Major League Baseball is making me do, vote for this guy for Rookie of the Year. I'm still going to not vote him first place.' It had nothing to do with CC.'
At the time, Sabathia disagreed with Assenheimer's reasoning.
'The award is for first-year players in the big leagues, and (Ichiro) is definitely deserving of it,' Sabathia said. 'There's not an argument about that at all.'
Assenheimer's choice had his phone ringing for days. He conducted interviews with Cleveland newspapers, USA Today and local and national radio shows. He called in to the nationally syndicated Mike & Mike, and listeners bestowed upon him the 'Just Shut Up' award. A Seattle morning radio show skewered him during an interview.
Geracie wasn't the only one to use Assenheimer's surname as low-hanging fruit to make light of the situation. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post devoted an entire column to it, though Mushnick actually sided with Assenheimer's explanation.
Mushnick wrote: 'Through a translator, (Ichiro) said, 'I was a little embarrassed to be called a rookie here in the United States.' Hey, Ich, how would you like to be called Assenheimer?'
When Assenheimer received a call from a Japanese newspaper reporter, he feared he was public enemy No. 1. Quite the contrary, she told him. The consensus thought in Japan, she said, was that it was disrespectful to deem Ichiro a rookie, given his accolades.
Even with nearly a decade of feats in the Pacific League, Ichiro still amassed 3,089 hits in MLB. That's how he landed a spot in the Hall of Fame, alongside, of all people, Sabathia. The two will be inducted, with reliever Billy Wagner and, posthumously, sluggers Dick Allen and Dave Parker, on Sunday in Cooperstown.
It wasn't me again, Ichiro.
— Chris AssenheimerC-T (@CAwesomeheimer) January 22, 2025
Last summer, Sabathia was inducted into the Cleveland Guardians Hall of Fame. It was pointed out to Sabathia that his lone Rookie of the Year supporter was in the room, so Assenheimer, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, asked Sabathia if he felt like he got robbed. Sabathia, perhaps changing his original tune, said 'Definitely. Ichiro was not a rookie.'
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Ichiro and Sabathia were both elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, with Ichiro's lone holdout voter opting to keep their identity a secret. Assenheimer didn't have that option in 2001, but he had no qualms about taking ownership of his ballot.
This time, Assenheimer could vote for both Ichiro and Sabathia.
'The whole thing just seemed silly to me,' Assenheimer said. 'I guess I could have just fallen in line like everybody else did. People were trying to say, 'You just want to be known.' That never crossed my mind. But it was fun to be out there.'
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Houston Astros / Getty Images, Otto Greule / ALLSPORT, David Maxwell / AFP via Getty Images)
