After months of work behind the scenes, the Seattle Mariners last week unveiled a bronze statue honoring Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki — the newest statue in the collection surrounding T-Mobile Park, which celebrates franchise legends like Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martínez.
Friday’s event was designed for a small crowd of journalists and team greats, although it immediately caught the attention of social media when, during the demonstration, the bat stood vertically in Suzuki’s iconic stance. lean back and rotate. The moment brought a lot of laughter from those in attendance, and Suzuki himself later joked about baseball players struggling with a broken bat.
Despite live changes to the bat’s position, which were quickly corrected, the statue was the product of a month-long collaboration between the Seattle Mariners, Suzuki, and sculptor Lou Cella of the Rotblat Amreni Fine Art Studio in Chicago. The Mariners chose the iconic pose and use of Suzuki’s 2001 Rookie of the Year uniform to take a look back at his extensive career with the team. Suzuki worked directly with Sella and the team throughout the process to ensure accuracy and detail preserved in the bronze.
Suzuki recalled that process, saying through an interpreter, “I actually wore the 2001 jersey as a sample for them.” “I’m glad I was still able to fit into that uniform.”
Suzuki’s impact on the Mariners was felt from the moment he first wore the jersey in 2001, when he won both AL MVP and Rookie of the Year for a Seattle team that won an American League record 116 games. Although his Hall of Fame career included time with the Miami Marlins and New York Mets, Suzuki retired as a Mariner in 2019 and ranks behind Griffey and Martínez among beloved franchise icons.
The opportunity to work on Suzuki’s sculpture was meaningful to Sela, who has gained expertise working in the professional sports field, but has a particular love for baseball.
Sela said of working on the Suzuki statue and his love of baseball, “I’m a sports fan. I’ve loved this stuff since I was a kid playing it. And especially baseball, I’ve always been not only a fan of the game, but I’ve been kind of crazy about it.” “It’s a great tribute and it’s the kind of thing that, as a fan, I really enjoy and feel very honored to be a part of.”
Starting with photo inspiration, the statue evolves from a base of welded metal rods called an armature, resembling a rough stick-figure outline of the body’s shape, into a fully sculpted clay replica.
After several versions of casting, the statue finally emerges in its final bronze material. Sela worked with Art Casting of Illinois, a fine art bronze foundry located in Oregon, Illinois, to cast what begin as small individual pieces of bronze, eventually merged together into the final sculpture that is now on display for fans visiting Mariners Stadium.
“The closest thing I can compare it to, physically, is your child going off to college and setting them free in the world, in a way,” Sela said, speaking about taking the statue off stage and putting it on display. At unveilings, he loves hearing the stories that parents and grandparents tell about their children watching their favorite player play. “To be left alone for so long and then to just let it all out there and hear this history just unfold is very gratifying to me.”
Although the bent-bat accident took center stage when it was revealed, the Mariners – and Suzuki himself – quickly made light of the situation. Seattle’s social media team posted “BREAKING: We’ve updated tonight’s Ichiro replica statue giveaway” with the image of a mini-statue with a bent bat, and Suzuki joked that Mariano Rivera should get the statue closer to the Hall of Fame, while also giving his serious opinion on the honor.
“There are artists who are on a completely different level and he is just the same type of person,” Ichiro said at the ceremony. “Just like Lou the Artist, I wanted to be the same as a baseball player. You want to be different and unique.”
