During the gestation period for the place that would become baseball¡¯s sacred shrine, Time Magazine, the New York Times and other periodicals referred to it as the ¡°Baseball Hall of Fame.¡± Then, when the stately brick building housing the Hall officially opened in 1939, the concrete nameplate left of the entrance said something else: ¡°National Baseball Museum.¡± And now, of course, we know that cherished institution in Cooperstown, N.Y., by its full, formal name: ¡°The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.¡±

But with Ichiro Suzuki¡¯s new status as a member of the hallowed Hall, we have a significant step in the evolution of this institution. Though there won¡¯t be any update to what is currently etched above the doors, a more appropriate appellation has emerged:

The International Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ichiro is the first Asian-born player to be elected into the Hall, and that¡¯s the most meaningful symbol yet of the proverbial bridge that has been built across the Pacific, between lands where baseball is so beloved.

When Ichiro arrived in MLB with the Mariners in 2001, it was an inflection point for the sport.

¡°Baptism by fire,¡± is how he described it through an interpreter after his Hall election.

Ichiro was the 11th player from Japan to join our big leagues and the first position player. His instant success as both AL Rookie of the Year and MVP inspired MLB clubs to more aggressively scout and sign players from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

With Ichiro¡¯s pending induction set for July 27 in Cooperstown, we have the continuation of a trend in which the Hall has slowly become more reflective of the wider (read: non-white) baseball population. The Hall features 37 people who were inducted mostly or entirely on the strength of their Negro League careers, and the majority were welcomed within the last 20 years. And just since 2011, the number of Latino players in the Hall has doubled, from 10 to 20.

Ichiro¡¯s arrival -- as the 22nd entrant born outside the 50 U.S. states or Washington, D.C. -- brings the Hall a bit more up-to-date with regard to the influence Asian players have had in MLB.

It also invites a conversation about whether that influence is properly recognized in the plaque gallery.

In the last two offseasons, with the Dodgers signing two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto to record-setting contracts and then coming out victorious in the Roki Sasaki posting sweepstakes, the path from NPB to MLB has been legitimized in a way that was unimaginable 30 years ago.

For starters, that should give us a greater appreciation for the roles Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park played as transpacific pioneers. Park was MLB¡¯s first Korean player, a product of then-Dodgers owner and president Peter O¡¯Malley¡¯s desire to grow the game by adding players from different backgrounds. Park reached MLB in 1994 and made his first significant impact two years later. He wound up pitching all or part of 17 seasons in the Majors and was an All-Star for the Dodgers in 2001.

As for Nomo, he was not the first player to go from NPB to MLB. That distinction belongs to pitcher Masanori Murakami, whose brief and fascinating tenure with the Giants was explored in a recent HISTORY Channel ¡°History This Week¡± podcast. But whereas Murakami was a one-off in his time (with an MLB tenure that lasted all of 89 1/3 innings), Nomo was a genuine revelation. Nomo was able to reach the bigs because his agent found a loophole in his Kintetsu Buffaloes contract, and he launched into temporary but memorable superstar status with the Dodgers when his corkscrew windup and ¡°Nomomania¡± swept the country during his NL Rookie of the Year season in 1995.

Do Park and/or Nomo have statistical cases for the Hall based on their time in MLB?

In a word, no. For their careers, they actually wound up with identical 97 ERA+ marks, or 3% worse than league average.

But there¡¯s also no denying that, as the first Asian players to stick and to defy the skepticism and stereotypes that came with their non-traditional arrivals (with Nomo, specifically, legitimizing the leap from NPB, as eight other pitchers did in just the five seasons after his arrival), they wield important legacies.

Then there¡¯s the guy who deserves the closest inspection now that Ichiro has broken down the door.

That¡¯s Hideki Matsui.

Matsui was on the 2018 Baseball Writers¡¯ Association of America ballot. He was checked on just four of the 422 ballots submitted (0.9%) and therefore fell off it permanently.

When you look at that year¡¯s ballot, you can see why Matsui didn¡¯t get much love from a voting body limited to 10 votes apiece. There were 10 eventual Hall of Famers on that ballot (Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome, Trevor Hoffman, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Larry Walker, Scott Rolen, Fred McGriff and Billy Wagner), not to mention the complicated cases of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Curt Schilling. Matsui¡¯s statistical case pales in comparison to all of the above.

But a future small committee would do well to consider Matsui in the full context of his career, especially knowing what we now know about the overall quality of NPB as not only a strong league on its own but also as a proven MLB pipeline.

In 10 MLB seasons, mostly with the Yankees, ¡°Godzilla¡± was a two-time All-Star, slashed .282/.360/.462 with 1,253 hits, 175 homers, 249 doubles and 760 RBIs. He was the World Series MVP in 2009 -- the first Japanese-born Series MVP.

That¡¯s Hall of Very Good stuff; not Hall of Fame stuff.

Add in his 10-season NPB career, however, and Matsui¡¯s total impact on major professional baseball is much more pronounced -- 2,643 hits, 1,029 extra-base hits, 507 home runs and 1,649 RBIs. He was a nine-time All-Star and three-time MVP in Japan.

Based on how quickly Matsui assimilated and what he accomplished in MLB in his 30s, is it really a stretch to speculate that, had he spent his 20s in MLB, those seasons would have been relatively on par with what he delivered in NPB? He was born in Japan, drafted in the first round out of high school and fulfilled his service to the Yomiuri Giants. None of that should be held against him when considering his complete -- and extremely productive -- baseball life.

It would be disingenuous to claim NPB and MLB stats can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis. But it¡¯s also disingenuous to claim NPB is nothing more than an overseas Triple-A. Were that the case, the likes of Ichiro and Ohtani and Yamamoto (who, when healthy, was an impact pitcher in 2024, especially on the World Series stage) would not have enjoyed such seamless transitions.

You might not agree that Ichiro¡¯s election changes anything. Obviously, it¡¯s not as if the numbers from his NPB career were necessary to put his case over the top. Though he didn¡¯t debut with the Mariners until age 27, he did plenty in his 19 MLB seasons to justify a first-ballot entry into the Hall.

But Ichiro¡¯s status as the International Hit King (4,367 between NPB and MLB) likely played a role in him falling just one vote shy of unanimity.

In the past, Hall of Fame voters have made it clear that it¡¯s what you do on the ¡°National¡± stage that dictates whether your image is ultimately etched in bronze. But as the Hall becomes more ¡°International,¡± future voters for the BBWAA and small committees should consider placing more weight on the totality of a player¡¯s production and influence.