Pete Rose's view on Ichiro Suzuki's combined professional baseball hits.

[MoJoe2014]

In article below it states that Ichiro Suzuki's combined hits in Japan and in MLB would put him 1 hit shy of Pete Rose's all time baseball hits record. Pete Rose explains that since it's a combined 2 leagues that Ichiro Suzuki's hits in Japan shouldn't count I have to agree with Pete Rose on this one. Because it's 2 different leagues Pete Rose is MLB all times hits leaders with 4256. And not to take anything away from Ichiro Suzuki because he has 2977 hits, and he will gets 3000 hits very soon. I think Ichiro Suzuki deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But the 1278 he hit in Japan should be separate.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/16198037/pete-rose-counting-ichiro-suzuki-japan-hits-record

 

[hoseman2248]

Nothing outside of the MLB should count. MLB is where the best players in the world go to play. Leagues in other countries are like the equivalence of our farm system. Look how many superstars in Japan came over and were nothing more than average at best in the MLB. Based on that alone it's suffice to say those leagues are inferior and therefore any accomplishments made in those leagues should not be added to what has been accomplished by that player in the MLB. That's like saying we should add someone's farm system hits to their career stats in the big leagues.

I don't doubt for a moment that had Ichiro been playing in the MLB since he was 20 years old that he would've gotten around 4,000 hits (assuming he stayed healthy), but he didn't come over until he was 27 and that's just the way it goes.

 

[milagros317]

Nothing outside of the MLB should count. MLB is where the best players in the world go to play. ...

One example: Sadaharu Oh hit 868 home runs in the Japanese leagues in his career (1959 to 1980). I believe he would have hit a few hundred home runs in MLB, but nowhere near 800.

 

[Mitchell]

Agree 100% with this.

Ichiro will be, and should be, in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

However, the hits total from Japan should not count.

Ichiro's final hit total should be, only the hits he has/got in his play in the major leagues here.

That is the final hit total that should be counted at the time of his retirement.

 

[Sodahead]

I think the media and observers have struck a pretty good balance. Obviously you cannot officially count his hits from Japan, but his accomplishments in both leagues are still noteworthy.

 

[Secretlee]

I 100% agree that stats outside of the MLB should not count, however, most things I see talking about it make the distinction that Ichiro's hit totals are in two different leagues, and there seems to be the intent of saying that Ichiro's and Pete Rose's accomplishments are both great, but they're still different.