Wray Morrison: The perfect goodbye

There isn’t always a perfect sendoff in sports. It always bothered me that Bobby Orr retired as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, and that Joe Montana didn’t finish his NFL career with the San Francisco 49ers.

While not perfect, there was a great sendoff in Major League Baseball on Thursday.  Forty-five-year-old Ichiro Suzuki retired as a member of the Seattle Mariners in his home country of Japan. There was an eighth-inning moment when Suzuki came off the Tokyo Dome field all by himself before being greeted by teammates such as former Jay Edwin Encarncion and former Mariners star Ken Griffey Jr.

Forty-five thousand got a chance to pay tribute to a major-league player of 19 years who racked up more than 3,000 career hits. Humility and thanks aren’t always front and centre from professional athletes, but Ichiro, with tears in his eyes, felt those emotions as he said goodbye to baseball.

We will likely see those emotions again when Ichiro goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 2025.