“I’m not trying to take anything away from Ichiro, he’s had a Hall of Fame career, but the next thing you know, they’ll be counting his high-school hits. That’s huge. I’m in awe of the guy”, says Grace, now the assistant hitting coach for the Diamondbacks. The former Cincinnati Reds star, banned from the sport and Hall of Fame due to gambling on baseball during his managerial career, will maintain the record. “It has something to do with the caliber of personnel”. Ichiro had 1,278 hits during nine seasons in Japan before joining the Seattle Mariners in 2001.
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With three more hits on Monday night in a blowout win for the Miami Marlins (over the lowly San Diego Padres), outfielder Ichiro Suzuki pulled closer to tying Pete Rose for the all-time hits record in professional baseball and now sits just one hit away entering Tuesday. How can he not do anything here, and hit [a record-tying] 55 home runs [in 2001] over there?
Ike Davis joins the Yankees after signing with NY on Monday and is set to become the team’s seventh first baseman this season whenever he makes his debut.
But if you were to include the 1,278 hits he got while playing in Japan, that brings him to 4,255. He is in no mood to change the “Home of the Hit King” tagline on his website.
Pete Rose, who never met a moral ambiguity he didn’t prod with a stick, has used the debate over Ichiro’s record to attack Japanese baseball for what he appears to think is an affront on him.
“We’ve had a number of Japanese players come over and be really successful”.
But here’s the thing: Ichiro already joined the 3,000 hit club eight years ago, depending on whom you ask. If you tried to equate Ichiro’s combined hit total with that for Rose, you’d also have to consider the 427 hits Rose collected playing in the minor leagues.
Although there has been public focus on Ichiro’s pursuit of the 3,000-hit Major League Baseball milestone in the United States, there really hasn’t been much talk of his passing the overall record. The Japanese league is considered at a level somewhat above Triple-A but below the majors, and with good reason. “Shame on us for not making a bigger deal out of it”. Well, if you count his 1278 total career hits in Japan.
“I would be happy if people covered it or wrote about it”, Suzuki said, “but I really would not care if it wasn’t a big deal”.
“I can not believe it’s not a bigger deal in Major League Baseball”, he said. He led the AL in hits seven times, won two batting titles and broke the all-time record for hits in a season (262) in 2004.
Major League Baseball seems to agree with me since they are not doing anything to recognize Ichiro as he approaches 4,256.
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“What I care about is my teammates and people close to me celebrating it together, that’s what’s most important to me”.
