The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown just got a little more crowded...literally and figuratively. Dozens of media, many of whom were from as

Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner have been elected this year. They join Dick Allen and Dave Parker, who were selected to the Hall of Fame by the Classic Era Committee in December 2024. The 2025 Induction Ceremony will take place on July 27 in Cooperstown.

The no-doubters appear to be a few years away as next winter's ballot doesn't include any slam-dunk first-ballot inductees.

With Ichiro Suzuki somehow not getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame unanimously on the first ballot, all signs point to this next icon of the game potentially being able to do what one voter decided should not be Suzuki's destiny.

Takeaways from an election in which Ichiro, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner punched their tickets to Cooperstown.

Players are elected to the Hall of Fame provided they are named on at least 75% of ballots cast by eligible voting members of the BBWAA. With 394 ballots submitted in the 2025 election, candidates needed to receive 296 votes to be elected.

As revealed Tuesday night, the Baseball Writers' Association of America voted in former Phillies closer Billy Wagner in his 10th and final year of eligibility. Wagner's name needed to appear on 75% of ballots to make it in. It appeared on 82.5%.

Ken Griffey Jr. played on the same Seattle team as Ichiro in 2009 and 2010, near the end of Junior's playing career.

Current Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred stated when Rose died that Major League Baseball couldn't lift the ban. That's up to the National Hall of Fame Committee in Cooperstown and right now there is no one willing to step up for Pete.

In a video posted on X by sports writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz, Wagner leaned against a pool table while taking the call. He listened for more than 15 seconds before he put his hand on his face, fighting tears and hunching over. “Thank you,” he eventually said to the person on the other end of the phone.

No one has ever walked through these doors with the sport-changing, Hall-changing, planet-changing possibilities of Ichiro.