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Suzuki: ‘Right time’ to call it a career

Baldwin alum ends 16-year MLB tenure tops among Hawaii-born players, hailed as great teammate

Kurt Suzuki celebrates after the Washington Nationals’ series-clinching Game 4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series on Oct. 15, 2019. Suzuki, a 2001 graduate of Baldwin High School who announced last week he will be retiring at the end of this season, and the Nationals went on to win the World Series that year. AP file photos

Kurt Suzuki earned the nickname “Pup” before he even enrolled at Baldwin High School.

It has stuck with him, at least among those who know him best, for the more than two decades since he left the Wailuku campus in 2001. During that time, Suzuki blossomed into one of the most — if not the most — notable Hawaii-born baseball players in history.

Suzuki’s remarkable 16-year Major League Baseball career will end next week when the Los Angeles Angels finish their season at Oakland, and several friends and family from Maui will be in attendance.

Perhaps it is fitting that Suzuki’s MLB career will end where it started — he was drafted by Oakland in the second round in 2004 after leading Cal State Fullerton to an NCAA title. He made his majors debut with the A’s in 2007.

“There’s a lot of factors that go into a decision like this,” Suzuki said via phone from Minnesota on Saturday. “You know, obviously I’ve been playing baseball my whole life. This is all I’ve ever known. So, it was not a decision that you can make overnight, be like, ‘You know what? I’m done.’

Kurt Suzuki celebrates as he rounds the bases after hitting a game-winning three-run home run in the Washington Nationals’ 11-10 victory over the New York Mets on Sept. 3, 2019.

“There is a lot of time and effort and discussion and factors that come into play. Probably the main factor was family. My kids are getting older. Malia is in 6th grade this year, my middle one, Kai, he is going to be 9 in November, and Eli just turned 6 in July.”

Suzuki and wife Renee met at Cal State Fullerton, and he has told The Maui News on several occasions in the last couple years that he has relished the chance to be a stay-at-home dad during offseasons, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic gave him extended time off.

“I’ve missed a lot in their lives,” he said. “And I felt like they sacrificed a lot of me not being there for their things and it just came to a point where I talked to a lot of guys and they say, ‘When you know, you know.’ Last year when I was playing, I kind of knew, but I wasn’t like 100 percent sure … I don’t want to have any regrets, I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I should have done this.’ “

Suzuki won a World Series with the Washington Nationals in 2019 and was an All-Star with Minnesota in 2014.

“I feel like I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to in my career — the World Series was the culmination of everything that you work for, you know, since playing baseball, to win a World Series,” he said. “Just being able to be able to be around the family more often and become a full-time husband, full-time dad to everyone in the family.

Suzuki throws to second base during a Los Angeles Angels spring training game on March 10, 2021.

“It just felt like the right time. There’s no real, like, main reason. You just have this feeling and you know it’s the right time.”

Suzuki will leave MLB 32nd all-time in games caught — he currently has played 1,538 games behind the plate. Suzuki is 25th all-time in MLB innings caught, with 12,959 2/3.

Among Hawaii-born major leaguers, Suzuki is the all-time leader in hits (1,420), games (1,633), plate appearances (6,160), at-bats (5,561), walks (387), doubles (295), home runs (143) and RBIs (729).

In what will now become his final season, he is hitting .175 with four home runs and 14 RBIs.

What’s next for Suzuki, besides concentrating on family, is more baseball.

Suzuki celebrates with teammates after the Nationals won the World Series with a 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros in Game 7 on Oct. 30, 2019.

“I want to be active in baseball, I love helping the kids, I love helping younger players, I take a lot of joy in helping rookies who come up to the big leagues for the first time and teach them,” he said. “That’s something that I really like to do. I’m not going to go into coaching, obviously, right away because coaching you still have to be away from your family.

“I will probably do some stuff with the front office — whatever it is, evaluating players, helping in meetings, draft and free agents and stuff like that. Just kind of giving my two cents on that.”

Indeed, that is something he started forming a love for as a youngster when he would hang around Baldwin practice when his older sister was a scorekeeper/statistician for the Bears.

Kahai Shishido, who was Suzuki’s coach at Baldwin, will be among the Mauians at Oakland next week. He remembers when “Pup” arrived.

“It was just a nickname that, I forget, one of the coaches called him ‘Pup’ because he would follow coaches when he was a freshman, follow the coaches around and ask questions and he was so inquisitive of everything and trying to gain knowledge of the game,” Shishido said Monday. “I think it was Joey (Vierra) that said he’s like a puppy, just following people around. I think that’s how it kind of came about.”

Shishido was a standout baseball player himself, at Baldwin and at the University of Hawaii, before becoming a state champion coach and eventually retiring as athletic director for the Bears.

“We all saw the high level of ability and talent that he possessed, in all aspects of the game,” Shishido said. “I think the thing that we noticed the most was the intangibles, the qualities that made him so successful — his intelligence, his work ethic, his coach-ability, his selflessness.

“Just a special, special person. He was a great teammate, always put the team’s goals ahead of his own personal goals. If you want a look at a kid and say ‘this is my ideal type of player,’ from all aspects, that’s what he was. He had everything rolled into one, which made him extra special.”

Jon Viela, a former Baldwin and UH standout, was an assistant coach at Baldwin when Suzuki was there. Viela is now the athletic director at Kamehameha Maui — with his wife Maile, Viela also runs the All-Pono Foundation that helps several youth sports organizations.

Viela marvels at Suzuki’s longevity, especial­ly as a catcher.

“This accomplishment that he has made is simply amazing,” Viela said Monday. “I saw that stat posted in that last game he played — I can’t remember if it was ESPN, or something — I saw that flash come up and I was just amazed by that stat they put posted.

“And then put that into perspective with the way that he ranks with the rest of the Hawaii-born major leaguers, and more importantly being a catcher and the toll it takes on one’s body. You know, that word comes to my mind and it’s just ‘amazing’ that he’s able to do that for this long and all that time of being in the major leagues.”

Viela said Suzuki’s impact on Maui baseball has been huge and will continue to be as he enters retirement. Suzuki routinely keeps up with the Maui County and Hawaii youth teams that advance and excel on the Mainland.

Suzuki annually runs a youth clinic in January at Maehara Stadium — he pays the way for dozens of youngsters from Molokai and Lanai to attend it.

“I know that his impact to the Maui youth has been tremendous, just being part of his baseball clinic,” Viela said. “I think Kurt has widespread following from a lot of the Hawaii kids, but more importantly the Maui kids who feel tied to him being that he is from Maui.”

The Vielas, Shishido and wife Wendy, and lifelong friend Kimo Higa will be in the stands in Oakland for Suzuki’s final series.

“You have this thing in your life, this sport that you played that has been so good to you and for it to be over, it’s definitely sad,” Suzuki said. “They’re all coming up to Oakland to watch my last series, so that’ll be really cool.”

Suzuki said that his most fond memories are numerous, but as he looks back he will relish the little things, with remarkable humility.

“I haven’t looked too far at it, obviously when I’m playing, I try not to look at things like that,” he said. “But I have an idea. Players ask me all the time, ‘How do you do it?’ And, it’s a lot of luck that goes into it. There’s some guys that are unlucky, that get hurt, whether it’s freak accidents or things like that.

“I think it’s when I say ‘it’s time for me to be a full-time husband and dad’ it’s because when you dedicate yourself to this game, you have a small window of opportunity to perform and be successful and you want to use that small window to do everything you can in your power, sacrifices, things like that, to train. I was blessed to have such a supportive wife, and supportive kids that allowed me to do that.”

One of the biggest memories is, of course, the World Series title he helped deliver to the nation’s capital as the main catcher for the Nationals. He hit a key home run in that seven-game win over the Houston Astros — the visiting team won all seven games in the series.

“I still get chills every time I talk about it because it’s just such a crazy journey to be able to win the World Series,” Suzuki said. “How we did it in ’19 was crazy and every time I look at my World Series ring, it kind of brings back memories of the guys and all those kind of things.”

But the No. 1 memory is even simpler.

“Probably the No. 1 thing — and this is what I’ve been going back and forth with everywhere I go — is the friendships that I’ve made,” Suzuki said. “I take great pride in being a great teammate and being a good person. That’s how I was raised from my mom and dad, was to always be a good person and treat people how you want to be treated.

“As you leave this game, people are obviously going to know you played, but when they say that you were a good teammate, a good person, things like that, to me, that is the best thing anybody can say about you.”

His mom and dad, Warren and Kathleen Suzuki, were recently hit by an automobile while they were out for an afternoon walk in Wailuku. They are doing much better after Kurt came home on bereavement leave on Sept. 3.

“They’re doing good now, thank the Lord that everything turned out OK,” Kurt Suzuki said. “It could have been a lot worse. So, I think I’m very blessed that they are getting better and they are in good spirits. They are kind of carrying on with their everyday lives, which is good to see, but no that didn’t have any factor (in the retirement decision). It is going to be nice to see them more often on a regular basis.

“I’m expecting to come home to Hawaii a lot more, especially in the summertime, bringing the kids back and being able to spend some time on Maui more often. So, that’s going to be a nice change.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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