Baseballs Hit King

[L K]

Ichiro got hit #4257 of his career when you combine his Japan totals.  It's significant because it has him pass Pete Rose.

I love that Ichiro has had an unbelieavable career (and is having a great year so far) but this desperate attempt from the media/baseball to try and equate hits in the Japanese league to hits in Major league baseball is absurd. 

Pete Rose is a jerk, he cheated on the game, but trying to claim that Ichiro is the all-time hits leader when he is sitting 1300 hits behind Pete Rose's MLB career is downright silly.  If this metric was going to be used by Major League baseball and the press, we would be talking about home run champion Sadaharu Oh instead of Babe Ruth/Mickey Mantle/Barry Bonds.

 

[Kin]

It's a little like how no one actually counts WHA goals.

That said if everyone hated Gretzky they might.

 

[bustaheims]

It's almost like they included minor league totals. It's silly.

 

[Bill_Berg]

Most of the talk I hear in the media acknowledges that Ichiro did not break Rose's record. Even Ichiro made comments along those lines and said he's looking forward to getting hit number 3000.