by Matt VandeSande
Possibly the most unrated and undernoticed greats in major league baseball has been playing rightfield for the Seattle Mariners for about a decade. Ichiro Suzuki stands to this date the greatest pure leadoff hitter since Ricky Henderson and many still do not his full accomplishments throughout his career.
Since making his way over here from Japan at the age of 27, Ichiro has done what no modern day superstar has been over capable of. Since his year of entering into the MLB and up til the beginning of this season, Ichiro has 225.6 hits per year. To put that in persepctive, soon to be 3000 hit man Derek Jeter in his career has only averaged 194 hits. Ichiro has not only established as a power house at getting on base he was first guy since the great Jackie Robinson to lead the league in BA average and stolen bases. In which he did that in his MLB rookie year where he averaged a .350 batting averaged and stole 56 bases for the Mariners. Althought Ichiro got alot of ridicule from being named the AL rookie of the year because it was his "true" first year of professional it did not stop the Japanese Wonder from breaking George Sisler's hit record of 257 hits in one season in 2004 when he averaged a crazy .372.
Although Ichiro has had a crazy MLB career where has no one can even complete with hitting skill. Few people relize the stats he had before came to the MLB. Before Ichiro came to the MLB he played for a league called the Nippon Professional League. I clearly bolded professional because I want you to relize that shockingly MLB isn't the only professional baseball league out their. So shouldn't his stats carry over and count. I say yes but so far Bud Sileg does not. If you do take into account his stats, Ichiro would have 3258 hits for his career as of right now. At the age of 35 Ichiro already has surpassed that exculsive 3000 club. In the MLB only he has already passed the 2000 hit mark. Now the part I'd like you the reader to grasp yourself on is that if you look at the top 10 hit leaders of all-time. You will notice that in tenth stands the great Willie Mays with 3283 hits, which if do you the math is ONLY 25 hits above Ichiro. Obviously we know Ichiro will not be retiring for a while, he has a solid 3-4 years before he retires with his talent. So my question to you the reader do you think MLB should recongize his accomplishments or make him suffer because a scout was not able to find him soon enough. One to relize though, if Ichiro does stay on this pace and played in the MLB he whole career he could of been the only man for a long while to ever compete with Pete Rose record of 4256 hits all time.
So in a baseball era where it seems every two or three months their is someone outted for cheating, should not MLB be looking at their true unsung heros. The player's that actually relize that baseball means everything to them. I'm talking about soon to be 3000 man Derek Jeter and Ken Griffey Jr, 300 game pitchers liek Randy Johnson and maybe one day Jamie Moyer. These are the man that will carry MLB through this shaddy era.