Ichiro Suzuki is a consummate professional and a man that respects the game of baseball, which makes it even more wonderful that he is the player to reach the plateau of 4,000 hits, joining Ty Cobb and Pete Rose as the only players to do it professionally.
Suzuki got his hit in the first inning of the victory over the Blue Jays on Wednesday, hitting a single to the left side of the infield off RA Dickey for the magic number. Ichiro played in Japan before making it to the majors and he has played 13 seasons in America, racking up 2,722 hits in the process to add to his 1,278 from Japan in nine seasons. While many say that Japan's hits don't count as much, and that's fair-ish to say, either way no professional player has reached 4,000 hits in quite some time.
Suzuki came onto the scene in 2001 with high expectations after setting records in Japan and he ended up doing the same in America, winning MVP and rookie of the year his first season and that came before the batting titles, 10 straight 200-hit seasons as well as the record for hits in a year with 262, breaking George Sisler's record, which stayed longer than the home run record.
Suzuki has the chance to have 150 hits in 13 straight seasons and he is considered to be one of the best hitters ever and now he has the most hits of anyone in history over a 13 season span and it happens to be his first 13 in the majors. He entered the year at 39 and he will have the chance to get 3,000 if he plays two more seasons in the league.
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