Inside the making of Mariners' now-famous Ichiro Suzuki statue

After months of work behind the scenes, the Seattle Mariners revealed a bronze statue honoring Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki last week -- the newest sculpture in the collection around T-Mobile Park celebrating franchise legends such as Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez.

Friday's event was designed for a small crowd of reporters and team greats, though it quickly caught the eye of social media when during the reveal, the bat standing vertically in Suzuki's iconic stance bent backward and spun. The moment brought a big laugh from attendees and Suzuki himself later joked about baseball players having to deal with broken bats.

Despite the live change in bat position, which was quickly fixed, the statue was the product of a monthslong collaboration between the Seattle Mariners, Suzuki and sculptor Lou Cella of Rotblatt Amrany Fine Art Studio in Chicago. The Mariners chose the iconic pose and the use of Suzuki's 2001 rookie year uniform as a lookback at his extensive career with the team. Suzuki worked directly with Cella and the team throughout the process to ensure the accuracy and detail preserved in bronze.

"I actually wore the 2001 jersey as a sample for him," Suzuki said through an interpreter as he recalled the process. "I was happy that I was still able to fit in that uniform."

Suzuki's impact on the Mariners was felt from the moment he first put that 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. Though his Hall of Fame career included time with the Miami Marlins and New York Mets, Suzuki retired a Mariner in 2019 and ranks next to Griffey and Martinez among beloved franchise icons.

The opportunity to work on Suzuki's sculpture was meaningful for Cella, who has created a specialty working in the professional sports space but has a particular love for baseball.

"I'm a sports fan. I have loved this stuff since I was a kid playing it. And baseball in particular, I've always been not just a fan of the game but I've been kind of a junkie," Cella said of working on Suzuki's statue and his love of baseball. "It's a great tribute and it's the kind of thing that, for me as a fan, I enjoy a great deal and feel very honored to be a part of."

Beginning 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 form, into a fully sculpted clay replica.

After several versions of molding, the statue eventually comes to form in its final bronze material. Cella worked with Art Casting of Illinois, a fine art bronze foundry based in Oregon, Illinois, What starts as small individual chunks of bronze, eventually is merged together seamlessly into the final statue now on display for fans visiting the Mariners' stadium.

"The closest thing I could materialistically compare it to, is to your child going off to college and turning them loose into the world in a way," Cella spoke of moving the statue out of the work phase and onto display. At unveilings, he likes to listen in to the stories parents and grandparents tell their kids about seeing their favorite player play. "After having it all alone for so long and then turning it loose out there and listening to this history just being extended is very gratifying to me."

Although the bent-bat mishap took center stage upon reveal, the Mariners -- and Suzuki himself -- were quick to make light of the situation. Seattle's social media team posted "Breaking: We've updated tonight's Ichiro Replica Statue giveaway" with an image of a mini-sculpture with a bent bat, and Suzuki joked that Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera must have gotten to the statue while also giving his serious take on the honor.

"There are artists that are just at a different level, and he's just that type of person," Ichiro said at the ceremony. "Just like Lou the artist, I wanted to be like that as a baseball player. You want to be different and elite."