Comparing Ichiro Suzuki to Pete Rose

First of all, full disclosure. As your proverbial red-blooded American boy, and a lifelong union guy at that, I have never, and would never own or even drive a Japanese car. I've always been willing to pay the extra bucks to buy American when such things are even available. In much of the electronic world, they are not.

So one can hardly call me biased when I say Ichiro Suzuki was likely the best hitter of all time. And no, this is no rap against Pete Rose. How the powers of baseball have conspired to keep him from his rightful place in the Hall of Fame I consider to be a gross injustice, even outrage. I don't care if he gambled or not, even on games. What he did "between the lines" is all that should count. And he's the all-time hits leader. Period. 

Or is he?

Enter the above-mentioned Ichiro Suzuki. In his 18 years in the American Major Leagues, he amassed a total of 3089 hits. He'll be going to the Hall when he's eligible. Nobody seriously doubts that. Throw in 589 stolen bases -- he was definitely fleet of foot. Let's add an accurate cannon arm from the outfield. Yep, he was the whole package. 

But he didn't even get a chance at the Major Leagues until he was already 28 years old. He spent almost a decade during his "prime" years playing for Onyx, a team in the top league in Japan. 

While there, he amassed another 1176 hits. Add it up and Ichiro had 4265 hits during his "major league" career, which eclipsed even Rose's mark.

Conversely, Rose played 24 years, mostly for the Cincinnati Redlegs, and was only 22 when he got his start. His "prime" years were in the American "majors". 

Sure, nobody played harder than Pete. Some would even call some of his plays "dirty" -- as in deliberately trying to injure an opposing player.

But he couldn't run like Ichiro. Not even close. And saying Rose possessed even an "average" arm would be generous.

It would be difficult to argue Ichiro couldn't have hit American Major League pitching in his twenties while in Japan's Pacific Coast League.After all, when he finally got the chance, he tore up American pitching, setting a record for the most consecutive 200 hit seasons.

So which was the best all-time hitter? It's an argument that can't be answered definitely. Yet I'll take Ichiro Suzuki. Throw in his multiple Golden Gloves and, to me, he was clearly the better player.

But I'm still going to keep buying and driving Chevies.