Ichiro Is Great. He's Not The Hit King. And That's OK.
Looking at Ichiro Suzuki's stats is pretty amazing. He got over 200 hits each of his first ten seasons in Major League Baseball. He led the league in hits seven of those seasons. He hit over .300 each of those ten seasons. He's only played less than 150 games during a season twice in his career, and has never gone under 140. You don't see a lot of home runs, but that's no big thing. All Ichiro does is hit, and he's still doing it at the age of 42. He's batting .354 this season and still producing whenever he gets the opportunity. He currently sits at 2,980 career hits as I write this, and he should reach 3,000 and ensure his place in the Hall of Fame within the next couple of weeks depending on how often he plays.
Well, let's make this clear real quick. Ichiro has 2,980 hits in Major League Baseball. The baseball league that's been around longer than any other league and has featured the best baseball players in the world for the majority of its existence. Before making his way to MLB, Ichiro spent nine years in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball & collected 1278 hits. Some folks have decided that those 1278 hits should be added to Ichiro's MLB total, which puts him at 4258 hits. Mind you, none of these folks have any kind of official capacity to do such a thing. The MLB record book doesn't list Ichiro at 4258.
So when Ichiro got "hit number 4257" on Wednesday, some people thought it was a big deal. Ichiro, to his credit, carried on with his business as usual because he's a professional and he understands the difference between MLB hits and Nippon Professional Baseball hits. He's not the kind of guy that'll MLB pointed it out because it was Wednesday afternoon and there wasn't much else going on in the sports world. The 20,000 or so people at Petco Park in San Diego gave Ichiro an ovation.
It was fine.
Then somebody had to ask Pete Rose about it. One thing you have to understand about Pete Rose: his hit record is one of the few things that MLB can't take away from him. He's also got the most career wins as a player, and the odds of anybody taking that off of him are pretty slim. He's more proud of that than anything else, and he figures he has the record in all of sports since baseball plays more games than other sports. Nobody really argues with him because he's Pete Rose and he refuses to lose arguments. The hit record's pretty untouchable too, although one could make the argument that Ichiro would be knocking on Pete's door for real right now if he had come to MLB sooner.
So Pete was asked, and Pete was offended at the notion that Ichiro could have broken his record. Which is fair, because the all-time hit leader in Major League Baseball is Pete Rose. MLB records involve statistics that happened in MLB. The NFL doesn't count NFL Europe stats towards career totals. The NBA doesn't include D-League stats in career totals. Pete might have been a bit crass in his answer, but it wasn't wrong. He leads MLB in all-time hits, and if you want to combine everybody's professional hits like people are doing with Ichiro, Pete's still got the lead by over 400 due to minor league hits. A good amount of which were probably harder to get than Nippon Professional Baseball hits. We're talking about a league where Tuffy Rhodes hit 55 home runs one season and the record holder has 868. Even if it's one of the better leagues that isn't MLB, comparing it to MLB is like comparing Major League Soccer to the Premier League.
Honestly, this is only a thing because a lot of people don't like Pete Rose for various reasons, they know he has thin skin, and saying that Ichiro is the all time hits leader will annoy him. Part of their Ichiro praise is to praise Ichiro, but most of it is to take a shot at Pete. It's the hot take society we live in today where nothing that happened in the past matters, everything happening now is the greatest thing ever, and anybody that disagrees is a bitter old fart. OK, that last part might be true, but the bitter old farts are right.
Ichiro will be the MLB hits leader/Hit King/whatever once he reaches 4,257 MLB hits. He'll probably need at least another decade in the league to get there, and if he's still hitting well at 52 years old he deserves the record. Until then, The King Stay The King, and if you come at The King you best not miss.
Reds Update
Well, if you're not going to be good you might as well be entertaining, right? The Reds had an interesting week in Atlanta & Houston. After scoring five runs during their entire series with the Oakland A's, the Reds went off for six in the first three innings they played in Atlanta. Not a whole lot of good pitching went on in the series featuring the two worst teams in the National League. The Reds won the first two games and things were looking ok, but the Braves took the last two and started themselves on a little hot streak. The Braves now own a 5-game winning streak after sweeping the Mets in New York and sit 3.5 games behind the Reds for 14th place in the NL. Break Up The Braves!
Speaking of teams on a hot streak, the Astros have rebounded nicely from their 7-17 start and are now just two games under .500. They're 11 games behind the Rangers, but considering it's only June there's still plenty of time for them to get back into playoff contention. The first two games of the Reds/Astros series went extra innings, with the Reds winning the first in eleven & the Astros taking the second in eleven. Both games were pretty entertaining, so the rubber match ending in an Astros clobbering of the Reds was a bit of a letdown. It was a good week for Houston against former division mates, as they took two games from the Cardinals in St. Louis prior to playing the Reds. Remember when the Astros spent their last few years in the NL Central getting stomped by those teams? They don't, most of them were still in middle school.
Another less than great week for the Reds, but at least most of the games were entertaining. That's all I'm asking at this point.
Baseball's Top 10: Fathers & Sons
Hopefully everybody reading this column had a Happy Father's Day! What better way for us to celebrate than by listing the ten best father/son pairings in MLB history? It was tough to narrow it down to ten, but I think I did my best here. Before Oriole fans get mad at me for leaving the Ripkens off, they miss the cut because Cal Sr. never actually played in the majors. He coached & managed, sure. But he didn't play.
I'm also sad that Eric Young Sr. & Jr. missed the cut, mostly because the beginning of Junior's career was so close to the end of Senior's that it took a couple of weeks before I noticed that Eric Young Jr. wasn't the same speedy outfielder that had been around forever. I just figured he'd had a couple of off years or something before re-emerging. In any event, here are the top ten father/son pairings in MLB history!
10. Hal & Brian McRae: These two don't get a lot of talk nowadays, but fans of the Royals before they were in contention again will remember them well. Hal played for the Royals from 1973-1987 & managed them from 1991-1994. Brian played for the Royals from 1990-1994 & had a successful career in his own right, but he never made the postseason while Hal won two World Series championships as a Royal.
9. Tom & Dee Gordon: Tom had a lengthy career as a pitcher all across MLB, perhaps most famously during his time with the Boston Red Sox when he was converted from a starter to a reliever and led the AL in saves in 1998. Noted Sawx fan Stephen King even wrote a book called [i]The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon[/i]. His son Dee won the NL batting title last season, but is currently serving a suspension for using PEDs. Also pictured with the Gordons here are the late Tony Gwynn & his son, Tony Jr.
8. Tito & Terry Francona:Most of us are more familiar with Terry as a manager, but both he & his father played the game for many years. Both men bounced around multiple teams, with Tito having his longest stint in Cleveland & Terry in Montreal. Terry is often referred to as "Tito" by longtime baseball people.
7. Gus & Buddy Bell: Gus was a four-time All-Star with the Reds while Buddy went to the ASG five times as a member of the Indians & Rangers. Buddy's sons David & Mike both played in MLB to make the Bells a three-generation baseball family. Though they didn't live up to the success of Gus & Buddy on the field, both men are still employed in baseball, as is Buddy.
6. Cecil & Prince Fielder: Out of all the pairings that made this list I think I'd say that they're the most similar to each other in style of play. Prince has dropped some weight in recent years so he doesn't resemble Cecil physically as much as he did when he broke in, but you can see Cecil's home run heavy style whenever Prince plays. They had been estranged for years, but have recently made amends & have a better relationship now.
5. Bob, Bret & Aaron Boone: Add in Grandpa Ray for three generations of Boone baseball brilliance. Bob played from 1972-1990 & managed the Reds from 2001-2003, when Aaron was the third baseman. Unfortunately he missed Bret's Reds stint by a couple years or we could have had Bob managing both of his sons.
4. Felipe & Moises Alou: Continuing our trend, Felipe managed Moises early in his career with the Montreal Expos, and towards the end of his career with the San Francisco Giants. Both Moises & Felipe played for seventeen years, and Felipe's brothers Matty & Jesus also had long, successful careers.
3. Sandy Sr., Sandy Jr. & Roberto Alomar: The first Sandy was mostly known for his defensive prowess & spent fifteen years in the majors. His sons Roberto & Sandy Jr. were two of the top young stars of the 1990s...Sandy Jr. went to the All-Star Game six times & led the Indians during their best period in decades while Roberto was a twelve-time All-Star, a ten-time Gold Glove recipient and was elected to the Hall of Fame on his second ballot.
2. Bobby & Barry Bonds: Barry's greatness is well-known, so much so that we almost forget how good Bobby was in his day. He hit 30 home runs & stole 30 bases in five different seasons, a feat that has only been matched by Barry. The genes were definitely there for Barry, whether they were enhanced or not, we may never know for sure.
1. Ken Griffey Sr. & Jr.: It's a tough call between the Griffeys & the Bondses, but at the end of the day you gotta go with the top vote-getter in Hall of Fame history and one of the cogs of the Big Red Machine. They also get bonus points for playing on the same team in 1990-91 and becoming the only father/son combo to hit back to back home runs, on September 14, 1990 against the California Angels. Senior might not have been Cooperstown material, but he did help the Big Red Machine win two World Series & made the Reds Hall of Fame.
Three Series To Watch This Week
1. Cardinals at Cubs (Monday-Wednesday): St. Louis has managed to put a little space between themselves & Pittsburgh for second place in the NL Central. The Cubs have the widest division lead in baseball, but the Cards have a chance to cut into it here. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, they've gone cold recently against the Astros & Rangers and are 2-4 against the Cubs thus far this season. Which is still better than most teams have managed, but still.
2. Red Sox at Rangers (Friday-Sunday): Don't look now, but the Rangers are on top of the American League and have built a nice lead in the West. Both the Rangers & Blue Jays have performed markedly better since the Odor/Bautista fight, making it more likely that they'll meet again in the playoffs. Everybody should be rooting for that. Another AL East team hits Arlington this week in the form of the Red Sox, who are out of first place as I write this, but who knows where they'll be when you read this since the Sawx, Jays & O's are all clumped together.
3. Nationals at Dodgers (Monday-Wednesday): Washington got a huge series win over the Cubs last week and are currently the hottest team in the NL. Sure, playing the Padres helps, but those Cubs wins were legit. They continue their West Coast swing in Los Angeles against a Dodgers team that's losing ground to the Giants fast. Monday's game pitting the unbeaten Stephen Strasburg against the ridiculous Clayton Kershaw should be a dandy.
Welp, that's all we have time for this week! Join us next time for more baseball fun!
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