"I remember the first time I saw him hit. I was with (former Hankyu Braves coach) Chico Barbon and I were in the outfield. I was running windsprints. This is when they first drafted him for Orix. Ichiro stepped in the cage and I stopped to watch him hit.
"I said to Chico, 'Look at him throw his hands at the ball.' I called Shigeyoshi Ino (the head of Orix's front office) to the side. 'Ino-san, that's your next superstar.' He's awsome.
"I don't believe in putting a lable on a young player...but this kid had it. He's cocky. He knows he's good. He's going to work at it, but he knows he's good."
Boomer, who spent most of his career here under manager Toshiharu Ueda playing for the Hankyu Braves (and in 1989) the Orix Braves, now lives near Atlanta and told those Braves years ago that they should do whatever they could to acquire the talented Mr. Suzuki.
"He could have hit in the major leagues as a rookie," said Boomer, who earned a reputation as a scholar on the subject of hitting while in Japan.
"I told him, 'Ichi, you've got to lift some weights. You've got to get stronger, bigger in the shoulders. You can get a triple crown. Because you're going to be winning batting titles.'
"Sure enough the kid starts lifting weights and a few years later (1996) he just missed the the home run title."
That was the season that Hiroki Kokubo of the Hawks led the PL with 28 long distance calls and Ichiro finished the season with 25 en route to his third straight PL MVP award.
Boomer's only regret as far as Ichiro goes is that they couldn't have been teammates.
When Ichiro was in his first pro season, Boomer was in his last and playing for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.
"I would have told him, 'You're going to win another batting title so aim for something else. You could win two crowns maybe three."
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And Boomer has first hand knowledge of the triple crown, having achieved the feat in 1984, his second season with the Hankyu Braves, making him the first foreign hitter to capture the batting, home run and RBI titles in the same season.
Hiromitsu Ochiai then the third baseman of the Lotte Orions was outspoken, as always, about the prospect of having a foreign triple-crown champ. Ochiai, a three-time triple-crown winner himself and playing many of his games in the hitters' heaven that was Kawasaki Stadium, was in a race for the home run crown.
"I look up and see everybody all the time giving him good pitches to hit," said Boomer.
In what seemed like a conspiracy so monstrous it could only occur in an Oliver Stone movie, one pitcher after another grooved pitches for Ochiai to hit. Even Hankyu pitchers were getting in on the act.
"(Hisashi) Yamada was the only one who wouldn't do that. He (Ochiai) was getting pitches right there," said Boomer. "And if he didn't swing, the umpires would call it a ball. The pitchers didn't like that but the only one who complained was (his Hankyu teammate) Yamada.
"The whole thing made me concentrate even more. I was that much more determined. So in a way it helped me."
One of the biggest cuts was from another teammate Yutaro Imai, the PL ERA champ that season who grooved several for Ochiai at the end of the season.
But in true Boomer fashion, he and Imai became good friends as time went by.
"There were three of us on the Braves. (Hiromitsu) Kadota, Imai and me. One week, I'd come to the clubhouse with a case of beer on my shoulder, the next week it would be Imai and the week after that Kadota.
"We'd stay after the game and knock back three or four, while everyone else was hurrying out."
In 1989, following the winter when both the Hankyu and Nankai railroads sold off their teams to Orix and Daiei. Kadota, in the final stages of his career, preferred to stay in Kansai rather than move with the Hawks to Fukuoka and he was permitted to move the short distance to Nishinomiya in Hyogo Prefecture.
"We were already friends before (we were teammates) but we became great friends," said Boomer.
It was a friendship that even survived Kadota getting a dislocated shoulder from his big buddy.
"I hit a homer or he hit a homer. I don't remember. But we were giving high fives. He was out for about a week.
But the happy times at Nishinomiya drew to a close in 1990 when Orix, now renamed the BlueWave, replaced long-time manager Toshiharu Ueda with a former Giants infielder and coach, Shozo Doi.
"Doi played with (Shigeru) Nagashima and (Sadaharu) Oh. And they were proud that they didn't need any foreign stars.
"He didn't want a foreigner to be the leader of the team. But if I don't hit, we don't win. When he came here, I was the leader and he didn't like me."
And Boomer wasn't the only player Doi didn't like.
"He got rid of Hiromi Matsunaga, he let Kazuhiko Ishimine...that was a good team and he ruined it."
And in 1991, Boomer, Imai and Kadota all moved to Daiei for Boomer's sayonara season.
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And it was that year that Shigetoshi Hasegawa (Boomer's teammate with Orix in 1991 and now the middle relief ace of the Anaheim Angels) took some of Boomer's advice to heart
"He had a slider that he could throw on a dime. But he needed to come inside and back hitters off the plate. I used to tell him can't get people out outside unless you come inside.' But the only one he'd pitch that way to was me...like I told him. But I was the only one."
And Hasegawa, like several of his countrymen, is now living it up in the majors.
"Take these guys who've been in the majors a couple of years. They won't want to come back to Japan and deal with all this military way of doing things.
"They're having fun now. But you look at a lot of major leaguers now and you don't see that much joy on their faces."
And for Boomer, joy is an often overlooked element of the game
"I'd tease and joke. I don't let guys get into a slump. (You go hitless today), I say, 'You'll get four hits tomorrow and three the next day.'"
And when people would ask how he could be so lose, always joking around?
"I always told people that I play for love of the game. It's play. how can you not have fun?
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
Daily Yomiuri .