Ichiro Ties Ty Cobb…Kinda

With an opposite field single in the fifth inning Friday night against the St. Louis Cardinals, Ichiro Suzuki tied Ty Cobb on the all-time hits list.

Well…kinda.

Depending on who you ask, the Miami Marlins outfielder tied the Hall of Famer with hit number 4191 or just got one step closer to the 3000-hit milestone. Confused yet? You shouldn’t be.

The breakdown for the ten-time All-Star is 1278 in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and 2913 in the Major Leagues.

Now…some perspective.

Only two players have reached the 4000 hit plateau in the bigs…Pete Rose (4256 hits) and Ty Cobb (4189).  Two others (Hank Aaron and Stan Musial) achieved the number if you add up their minor league and Major League totals.  Aaron had 3771 in the Majors and 324 in minors…totaling 4095 regular season hits.  “The Man” combined for 4001 (3630 in the Majors…371 in the minors) during his days in St. Louis and the minor leagues.

If you choose to go further down the rabbit hole, you’ll find Jigger Statz and Julio Franco.

During his eight-year Major League career, Statz collected just 737 base hits.  But here’s the impressive part.  Between 1920 and 1942, the former outfielder amassed an amazing 3356 hits, while playing in the minors.  Add those two totals together and, you guessed it, more than 4000 hits.  4093 to be precise.

Franco compiled an astounding 2586 hits during his 23-year big league career.  But, outside of the Majors, dude was collecting hits left and right.  The breakdown: Minor Leagues-618, Mexican League-316, Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball-286, Dominican Winter League-267 and South Korea’s Korean Baseball Organization-156.  Add that up and you’re looking at 4229 hits!

So, however you look at at…Ichiro has definitely entered into a rare, weird group of players.