| Ichiro Reaches 4,000 Career Hits |
| By Sally Haase August 22, 2013 NEW YORK, NY-- New York Yankees fans were treated to history last night when veteran outfielder Ichiro Suzuki reached a career milestone (between Japan and Major League Baseball) of 4,000 hits when he slapped an opposite field single in the first inning. R A Dickey is the pitcher who gave up the historic hit that unfortunately will not be recognized by MLB because 1,278 of Ichiro’s hits were for Orix in Japan’s Pacific League. His name may not be added to the MLB record books, but Ichiro joins a rare company of players who have 4,000 plus hits in their career. Of course the main two players are Hall of Famer Ty Cobb and banned player Pete Rose. Ichiro is less than 300 hits away from reaching the HOF benchmark of 3,000 hits in Major League Baseball and still has a month and a half of games to play this season and is under contract with the Yankees for one more season. There is no doubt that Ichiro will get to 3,000 Major League hits and that will then place him in the Hall of Fame without much debate. Wednesday night’s game was stopped for several minutes for the crowd to acknowledge the feat and for Ichiro’s Yankees teammates to congratulate him. Ichiro also expressed his gratitude to the fans and peers with several bows. To have 4,000 hits in your career you need to not only be a great hitter, you also need to stay healthy in your over 2 decades of playing baseball. You can be the best hitter in the world, but if you spend a good chunk of your season on the disabled list, you are simply going to run out of time to reach 4,000 hits. Outside of the gray hairs on his head, Ichiro looks the same as he did in his MLB rookie season of 2001 and he is still one of the best outfielders in the game. With the shape Ichiro keeps himself in, he could basically play until he decides to stop and with his speed and hitting skills, we could be looking at a player who could reach 4,000 Major League hits. |
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