Ichiro Suzuki’s 2001 MLB arrival didn’t just change the game on the field — he helped feed growing international demand for baseball cards via plenty of new premium brands that helped pave the way for the ultra-deluxe stuff of today.

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A legendary career and baseball journey on two continents makes its final stop this month in Cooperstown, N.Y., and the Hall of Fame and there’s a lot that can be said about that in several directions. 

Ichiro Suzuki changed the game with his arrival in MLB, eschewing the longball in favor of speed and hits — lots and lots of hits. But, “hits” are also the story of all those years when it comes to baseball cards with the prized rarities found in packs with autographs on them — or pieces of memorabilia in them — being an unstoppable force in those years. 

Of course, hits didn’t start with the Japanese star’s arrival, but many of his cards in sets alongside another now-legendary 2001 rookie, Albert Pujols, helped change the cardboard world even faster. Demand for their stuff prompted several new brands from several companies making MLB cards back then to try new things, capitalizing on their new stars who could move packs and boxes of cards -- just like they could move players around the bases and move butts into seats to watch games. One could argue that 2001 was in part a big piece in the evolution of what we see in today’s sports card landscape -- a focus on rarities with small print runs and with premium prices that weren’t like the wax paper-wrapped pocket-change treasures of not that many years before. 

Now, what’s to come here is absolutely not a definitive list of top cards — and it’s not one purely based on volatile values or one limited solely to Rookie Cards. Why? There’s a lot to choose from for Suzuki on all fronts — there could be several ways to take on this challenge. He has more than 50 different Rookie Cards between his 1993 Nippon Professional Baseball and 2001 Major League Baseball debuts (depending on how you want to argue about RC definitions) and he had roughly 500 cards in 2001 alone. Many of them are rarer cards where it is impossible to own them all thanks to small print runs and rare serial-numbered versions. 

In all, he appears on more than 19,000 different cards made over the years between NPB and MLB -- and even though his playing career ended in 2019 his cardboard career has not. He’s got a place in the game in seemingly every new baseball card set on the way and that figures to be the story for the rest of cardboard eternity. He’s not just a Hall of Famer … he’s an international icon.

Here’s a small sampling of 25 Ichiro Suzuki cards that are both fun and notable.

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Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.

Here's this month's grading diary here on The Buzz ...

THEY'RE BACK ... SOMETIME SOON
The Item: Stranger Things Season 1 Target-exclusive Blu-ray set (2016)
The Reason Bought: How many Netflix series these days get a physical DVD release of any kind? How many get chain store-exclusive variant versions? Not that much of anything TV gets a physical release, really, not at least anywhere near the volumes of the past and that thought, along with the fact that the final season of this franchise is finally dropping sometime this year, got me looking here. I really liked the feel of this DVD set that's made to look like an old 1980s VHS sleeve that's had plenty of wear and tear and I also liked the idea of a graded item with that feel -- one where its actual flaws can blend in well and not stand out as glaring reasons why an item didn't grade higher.
The Grade: CGC 9.4 (A+ seal)

Reality Check: There are definitely other* copies of this one graded, but a pop report doesn't yet appear to be live for CGC Home Video (or it was down when I prepped this) and my number didn't come up on the verification search, either. That's OK for me as slabbed movies and games aren't as high on my radar in slabs as cards and magazines in terms of a "commodity" ... these are more the kind of shelf item with maybe some longer-term potential substance to them. To me they're more of a name-your-price novelty -- and, as an aside, I do like CGC's cases a lot more than others in this realm. This was a relatively cheap addition as well -- less than a lot of retail card boxes -- and over time affordable items can build a collection. One scary part? This is not far away from being 10 years old ... time flies.

Keep reading for more of this month's pick-ups and new slabs for Buzz.

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Do you like Buzz Breaks? Today's your day then as we launch 12 in 12 -- a series of a dozen breaks of past wax boxes and wax packs in a dozen hours. We'll post one every hour on the hour all day long today ... this is Hour 9.

The box: 2001 Fleer Tradition NFL blaster
The cost now: $12
The cost then: $13.99

What's inside this one? Keep reading ...

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