Male baseball star lands 17 strikeouts against all-girls high-school team

A baseball legend scratched his pitching itch when he lined up against an all-girls high-school team and threw 17 strikeouts.

Ichiro Suzuki keeps scratching that baseball itch. (Photo by Masterpress/Getty Images)

Future Hall of Fame baseball star Ichiro Suzuki continues to pop up at sporting events in his native Japan.

The seven-time Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star returned to the diamond recently to face an elite team of high school girls in an exhibition game.

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The New York Post reports Ichiro, now 48, threw 147 pitches and topped out at 135km/h on his way to 17 strikeouts. He also hit a batter with a pitch and was 0-for-3 at the plate.

Best known for breaking batting records, Ichiro pitched on an MLB mound one time as a reliever for an inning with the Miami Marlins in 2015.

“I used to pitch in high school. I did pitch in an All-Star Game in Japan,” Ichiro said at the time. “But to be on the mound at a Major League Baseball game, you can say one of my dreams came true today. But I’ll never ask to do that again.”

Ichiro says: "Get off my Plate!!" pic.twitter.com/2WGq9OYRNc

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) December 18, 2021

The recent outing came after Ichiro showed up to participate in a baseball practice in late November, with students from Japan’s Kokugakuin Kugayama High School.

Ichiro played nine seasons with the Orix BlueWave of the Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, before entering the MLB in 2001, and played 12 seasons with the Seattle Mariners.

Ichiro played two-and-a-half seasons with the New York Yankees in 2012-14, before he signed with the Marlins in 2015. He played three seasons with Miami before returning to the Mariners in 2018.

This story first appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission