Ichiro Suzuki – The New Hit King?

By Steven Cardona
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Updated: June 16, 2016

(Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)

Miami Marlins outfielder, Ichiro Suzuki, has surpassed the all-time professional baseball hit leader, Pete Rose. An unbelievable stat has been “broken”. Ichiro now has 4,257 career hits (1,278 of those hits come from his days in Japan). Rose had held his record for a long time having all of his 4,256 hits in the MLB.

His “record-tying” hit was the most typical Ichiro hit – it almost felt scripted from a book. His trademarked swing bunt is something no baseball fan will ever forget.

And the even greater moment came when, he would “break” the record with a double, giving him a chance to leg out another extra base hit.

The MLB doesn’t recognize combined stats so unfortunately for Ichiro, the MLB record held by Rose is still far-fetched. But from a pure baseball fan standpoint, the debate will continue until someone can surpass both Ichiro and Rose. Regardless of who you consider the all-time hit leader, Ichiro has undoubtedly impacted the game of baseball and is 21 hits away from the big milestone – 3,000 MLB hits.

Many won’t consider him the new hit king, but racking up 3,000 big league hits after the age of 27 is only a feat a talented athlete like Ichiro could accomplish. At 42 years old, he is batting .352 — which is absolutely remarkable.

You will always be remembered for your hustle and finesse. Congratulations and thank you, Ichiro.

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Steven Cardona currently works for the Tampa Bay Rays in their baseball operations department. Much of his past experience focused on player personnel, departmental administration, research and development. Prior to joining the Rays, Steven worked for the Miami Marlins and the New York Mets. The Naples, Florida native graduated from the University of South Florida with a bachelor’s of science in Business Management.