He Woulda Been The Hit King
Ichiro got his 4000th hit yesterday and we’re all left wondering what his hit total would be had he played his entire career in MLB. He has 2,722 hits here, 1,278 hits *there*. I’ve heard the rabble about his hits from Japan *not counting* but that’s short sighted and misses the point of “what if?”
Not only do I think Ichiro would have gotten 4,000 but I think he would have become The Hit King with more than a few hits to spare. True, he hit .353 in Japan and *only* .320 in his mlb career. But remember, in his Japanese career, he would only play in 135 games a year (at most) vs 162 in MLB (I think they have increased their season to 144 since he left). He routinely shorted himself 130 or so at bats a year playing in Japan. But some fans say, “well, you don’t know what he would have done had he played here all those years. Uh, ya kinda do. This isn’t like trying to translate Sadahara Oh’s 868 bombs into mlb bombs. He never played MLB we have no idea what he would have done here.
But Ichiro has played here 12 full seasons (this is his 13th). Going into this season he had 2,606 hits in his major league career. That’s an AVERAGE of 217 hits in a season. Anyone think Will Clark was a decent hitter? Maybe better than decent? Maybe one of the best you’ve ever seen in a Giants uniform? Ok, that last one is a little subjective but he is to me.
200 hit seasons that Will Clark had in his brilliant 15 year career: 0
If Ichiro averaged 217 hits a season (heading into 2013) I think we have a pretty solid idea of what he would have done over the course of a 21 year career.
And I love how people are throwing Ty Cobb in with Rose. Please, just stop. Ty Cobb banged out 4,189 hits? Before African American or Latino players were allowed to play? Excuse me, but where is that asterisk?
I salute the Great Ichiro with one of the highest honors the Flap can bestow upon another person: 2 flaps up. While we can unfortunately not count his hits from Japan to get him into The 4,000 Hit Club it’s easy to see that he likely would have easily gotten to 4,000 hits had he played in the States his entire career, and would have very probably passed Cobb and Rose. With the greatest of ease, he is a first ballot hall of famer…….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Not to mention the guy was a fine outfielder in his prime with a bazooka arm. Not to mention we may not ever have seen him play in his prime…
I’m heading to Saturday’s Pirates game with the Snarkkettes for our annual Giants fix before school starts again. Hoping for a competitive game…
Hey if the game turns sour maybe u and the girls can hit the 2nd act of a play that Ted is probably in…
Oh yeah,Ichrio is 1st ballot HOF easily.
And if he decides to play 2 more years and stays healthy,he will bang out the 150 avg hits to get 3,000 in the states.Always appreciated his style and demeanor for the game.Class Act Player!!!
Oh yeah,Ichrio is 1st ballot HOF easily.
And if he decides to play 2 more years and stays healthy,he will bang out the 150 avg hits to get 3,000 in the states.Always appreciated his style and demeanor for the game.Class Act Player!!! Definitely 2 Flaps UP.
Anyone think it would be cool to have baseball lift the lifetime ban on Pete Rose and let these 2 all- time hit leaders go into together?
Are screw Pete and it would cheapen the moment for Ichrio that day?
Pete rose alongside anyone would cheapen it, let alone an Ichiro.
Rose did what he did and it’s unacceptable, forever.
Kind of hope Ichiro retires pretty soon. I don’t want to see him hit .260 or bat 7th in the order.
He’s also to be applauded for being so unique in his batting style and stretching pre game routine. Often kids from his culture are taught the *nail that stands up*, etc.
I agree with WillieD.
Pete Rose was a great player. And, a jerk. But, being a jerk obviously doesn’t disqualify you from the HOF.
Unfortunately for Rose, betting on baseball games while you’re a manager, let alone as a player, does. Forever. Matters not one iota whether Rose never bet against the Reds as either player or manager — which I don’t believe, BTW. Because if you’re in deep loan shit to Tony Soprano and Paulie Walnuts is about to make you a visit to “talk” about the overdue payment, what does it mean to Tony when you tell him that today you’re NOT betting on the Reds? It means Tony just called off Paulie’s visit ’til next week..
Careful, Snarkk; you’re perilously close to revealing the origins of my nickname here . . . .
Dirt has given me grief about always “going to the well” one too many times with Ichiro in the Flap fantasy leagues we’ve played in the last few years. Frankly, in the last two years – Dirt has been mostly right about Ichiro getting a bit long in the tooth, but I still love the guy. Not only do I believe that this dude would have shattered the MLB hit mark had he played his entire career in the MLB; but equally important, HE WOULD HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS AND WITH THE GRACIOUSNESS AND HUMILITY CHARACTERISTIC OF MOST (IF NOT ALL) JAPANESE PLAYERS.
I even understand why he went to the vaunted and hated Yankees – he wants a title like all good players that have the competitive fire burning in their gut. This dude never complained about playing in the Siberian like outpost of Seattle and you have to admire that. Great thread Flav for one of my favorite players. Two flaps up indeed!
Awesome thread, Flav. I have no doubt he would have passed the 4,000 hit mark had he played his entire career here. And while I haven’t followed him as closely as some (Blade, etc.), I have seen enough to understand how the man plays the game with humility and class.
Regarding Sadaharu Oh…if you get a chance I highly encourage you to read his book “A Zen Way of Baseball.” I always admired him for what he did as a player, but after reading the book, I equally admire him for who he was as just a quality human being. There should be a wing or something for foreign ballplayers in the HOF, as I feel he certainly belongs.
Again, excellent thread Craig. With Two Flaps Up, I salute Ichiro.
Slow travel day with not too many games scheduled, so I added Ichiro from the waiver wire to my Flap team.
🙂
Two flaps. That’s awesome.
Ichiro should be the the next future HOF that Selig parades around to every park for well-deserved recognition (ex. Rivera and Chipper).
I still watch this video a couple times a year.
That is a bad-ass play…Perfect throw.
Ichiro’s a slam-dunk Hall of Famer.
I got to see him play a game in Seattle, and one in Oakland. We sat down the rightfield line just so we could be total Ichiro-heads, and cheer his every move.
In Seattle, we bought an Ichiro bobblehead, and it’s totally awesome.
I’ve said before at the Flap, that, in my opinion, he was our generation’s Joe DiMaggio. He didn’t hit for as much power as Joe, but there’s a similar combination of grace and strength.
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S-Dog, the Chronicle goody bags are not mystery bags. They have a display showing what’s in the bag.
It was interesting to me that the guy wasn’t doing a hard-sell. He wasn’t calling out to passerbys. If somebody walked up to his display, he enthusiastically talked about the bags, but nothing like the guy hawking programs. I was surprised there weren’t more people buying the bags. Parents, for example, could have made their kids’ day with that $4 bag.
I realize it’s happening because the Chronicle, like all newspapers, is hurting for customers, and is looking for ways to promote their publication. And magazines, too. I recently bought a year’s subscription to “National Geographic,” for $15!! That works out to a little over a dollar an issue.
There’s a side-project band called The Baseball Project who write and record songs about baseball. R.E.M.’s Peter Buck is a member. Here’s their song about Ichiro:
Here’s the lyrics to the song:
The Baseball Project – Ichiro Goes To The Moon
Album: Volume 2: High And Inside
Songwriter: Scott Lewis Mc Caughey
He’ll have a seven course meal
That Yumiko, his wife, prepares
And for his second stomach
2 ice cream bars and 6 chocolate eclairs
By day, he builds a spaceship
It’s got a periscope and hatch
At night, he might go 5 for 5
With a patented sliding catch
A patented sliding catch
For those who haven’t worshiped yet
Must succumb to bowing soon
There’ll be nothing left to prove
When Ichiro goes, Ichiro goes to the moon
When Ichiro goes, Ichiro goes to the moon
At age 40, he’ll turn to pitching
With a fastball that hits 95
A knuckler that defies gravity
A curve with a 12 to 6 dive
Don’t put him on a pedestal
Just treat him with respect
He seeks but his own approval
And earns all that he gets
He earns all that he gets
There’ll be another curtain call
A spacesuit in the trophy room
And I won’t be surprised at all
When Ichiro goes, Ichiro goes to the moon
When Ichiro goes, Ichiro goes to the moon
When Ichiro goes, Ichiro goes to the moon
All good, Zum. Hey-have you ever head of a book called “Baseball Legends and Legacies” by a guy named Gary Hall? The guy is a former batboy for the Dodgers and Giants and has befriended many big leaguers over the years. He had a bunch of famous players from the 60’s and 70’s fill out a survey and also gave them a forum to tell some of their favorite stories. On one hand, the book is very corny and poorly written, but on the other, it contains a lot of good stories and insights. To top it off, it is very Giant-centric and also features quite a bit of content related to Bobby Bonds—who I know we share as our favorite SFG of all time.
My brother found the book somewhere and gave it to me.
It finally happened….Wilson made his Puke Blue debut today…pitching the ninth, he allowed 1 hit and struck out 2.
well, he’s nothing more than a set up guy, but it’ll be interesting to see how he does.
I was on hold at KNBR to talk to Byrnes about this retire #22 topic and he just read my tweet on the air using Dale Murphy as a comparison of a non-HOF who got retired by the team. Then he went to commercial break and I was like, eh, that’s what I was gonna say on the air anyway. So I hung up. lol
I love The Thrill…one of my all-time favorite Giants, but IMO not a HOFer.
Suzuki, HOF.
Clark, seat next to the waitress station at any NOLA bar, I’m good with that.
Will’s a step below the HOF, but that’s OK. He’s in the Giants HOF, and that’s pretty damn good…
oh, he’s a few steps below the HOF. And I was going to explain to Byrnes why that is (cause he was arguing for that too). If Will somehow made it to the HOF people that visit the HOF would see him and be like, “huh?”
Thrill was something that was HOF to Giants fans, especially anyone who was 8-18 in the mid eighties. He was and always will be my favorite sports hero of all time and the Giants should retire his number. #retire22
Hey, don’t get me wrong, Will killed the Cubs and had one of the sweetest swings ever, but the best for me was wearing Giants gear and going to NOLA during the 80’s, I was treated like family. And I swear, Will had signed stuff through out most bars I went to.
I wasn’t 8-18 when The Thrill hit the scene in 1986, I was 30, but he had the same effect on me. I have always been on the fence about retiring 22, but I could see it. Agree…he is HOF to us, but to the baseball world in general, nah.
So, on FB I posted about getting beat 12-1 by the Sox and even though I was traveling North to their neck of the woods and that was still going to wear my Giants hat (I had thought about switching to my 9ER colors). We are still the Champs, so I’m wearing that cap, because…I can. A friend that works for the Giants (actually a friend of a friend), wrote back “its gonna get worse before it can get better…better drive slow home…”. Sound advise, I’m sure.
Hey man, good to hear from you again.
I caught 30 minutes of Trombone Shorty on Austin city limits with Ivan Neville on keyboards. Wow, what a high energy band, lot going on. Loved the interplay with the tenor and bari and all the percussion.
Good man…I would have done the same. The next day I would have been rocking the Red and Gold.
Good stuff. And I’ve said it here, as well as a few others echoing it: Sadaharu Oh was by all accounts a very, very good hitter and would have done very well here. I concluded that from reading Oh’s excellent autobiography written with David Falkner in the Eighties (seems hard to obtain).
There are plenty of copies to be had on Amazon (first printing from ’85), but for one in good shape you’ll pay around $45 (I know as I am looking for one for my future son-in-law). I have a copy…excellent book, and yes, I think he would have thrived in MLB. Maybe he would not have hit as many HRs as he did in Japan, but he would have been very good IMO. So, is he the “true” HR king?
When Will Clark was called up was the beginning of the end of a long era of suck by the Giants. Thankfully I hit college in 1973 and for the next ten years or so didn’t keep up with the Giants on a daily basis. Once all those great Giants players of 60’s left we hit the baseball doldrums for a long while.
I don’t think you could retire the Thrill’s number. Giants have 12 numbers retired, all HOFers, I believe. I think in baseball, you should get your # retired only if you’re a HOFer.
If Kent gets in, he gets his number retired. Bonds, too, but the HOF is an illusion for him. Maybe he’s the exception. Otherwise, simple and easy…
Retiring numbers of Hofers is SOP. But teams retire numbers of non HoFers –Byrnes noted my example today: Dale Murphy.
Break this to me gently: how bad was Cain’s arm injury?
Solid shot on the forearm. If I was guessing, I would say badly bruised but not broken.
Zumie, I think I posted about The Baseball Project a few seasons ago, good to see the reference. Steve Wynn was also part of Danny and Dusty (http://blogcritics.org/danny-and-dusty-the-lost-weekend/) and The Dream Syndicate is still my all time favorite Velvets rip, just ahead of Hackamore Brick.
2013, the year Gaudin and Moscoso rescued the Giants from an even worse fate.
Yeah, I remember liking Dream Syndicate during the height of MTVs “120 Minutes,” one of my favorite eras of music.
Scoots!
S-Dog and Pawlie, I’ll look for those books you guys mentioned. I’m making a library trip pretty soon.
I figured you were 100% kindle. Nice job on keeping it real with the library. That’s rad
I like my Kindle a lot, but I’ve also got an awesome local library. My county voted a slight sales tax increase for itself in order to keep the library funded very well. That’s almost unheard of these days in our nation.
2 walks and a hit batter.
I’m of the opinion that major league pitchers should pitch better than I would.
Someone should tell Krukow you haven’t caught a break if only 2 runs score instead of 3 on the ground rule double. I’m sorry, there’s just no way that should be called “catching a break.”
Pen implosion.
This shit is getting annoying, or boring, and I think boring is worse…
Sheezus.
I was half joking the other day when I wondered if we’d win 70. I’m not joking anymore…
I read Braun’s entire statement at MLB.com. It’s somewhat of an apology, but still not fully there, in my opinion. It still has some of the “I now realize what I did” quality to it.
He knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he told all his lies.
Same as Bonds, same as A-Rod, same as all the rest.
At the Flapalooza, I think the entire group should petition to take the place of the Giants players. We’d look foolish, but we’d have fun doing it. Hell, if we all just stood there at the plate and took 3 straight strikes apiece, or swung and missed at everything, that’d be a 9 pitch inning minimum. That’s pretty darn good in the scheme of things these days. Gnight Flappers. A one-fingered Makers awaits…
Speak for yourself, I still make it to the batting cages, and . . . oh, wait, I guess i wouldn’t get to take my hacks against Zito’s 82 MPH heater.
This is already happening – I heard that one of the BallDudettes tried to catch a foul ball . . . I’m not certain what she said afterwards, but rumor has it that she said, “Next time you get in my way Panda, I’ll kick ya in the nuts.”
Blade:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=29870649&topic_id=8878828
Ahh . . . That’s right – Arias. Regardless, she gives smack to Panda when he is in the line up. 😉
One more thing. What’s the deal with the announcing crews? Miller is gone for the long weekend “on assignment”? Flemm was just gone for over a week doing the LL World Series. Kuiper and Krukow are off “on assignment” fairly regularly. It not just the players that apparently have lost their intensity and focus…
If this is what we’re in store for the rest of this series, I’ll expect a huge thank you from my brother and sister-in-law Pirates fans.
Noonan! Wow. Just got back and got to see that overmatchup.
Enough with the ‘he wouldn’t have done that 22 lb ago’ shit. When he starts spraying the ball all over the alleys and over the fence . . .
pffffffffffffffft
God, I hate Greg Papa. Did you even watch the game? It was tied in the 5th. It wasn’t a wipeout.
Well, til it was.
Four of the Giants’ last five home games: 2-10, 0-7, 1-12, 5-10.
sniff…..
Will always love the Orange and Black, and baseball will always be my first love in sports, but when the wheels fell off last night…I turned the fricking game off. My girlfriend sits there and says “I can’t believe it…you turning off the game. Mr. you got to stick with it until the end…”. Well, that shit was brutal last night…the 7 run 5th just did me in. And when Mijares came in, Krukow was all jacking-off about him (Ks/innings pitched). I’m sorry…I have been cringing for some time when Mijares takes the bump. They definitely need a couple of bullpen arms for next year.
The prognosis on Cain was good in there were no broken bones, but I will be really surprised if he doesn’t miss a start.
Let’s see if Big Country can stop the bleeding tonight.
He will if the Giants can score some runs.
I hope Wille D’s coffee is extra strong!
Man, it’s just the regularity that these guys just get thumped. One of three is the norm now. And the one is usually a huge effort. The other two are 0-7, 1-12 . . . .
Agree. Last win a walk-off on a bases loaded walk..otherwise the game goes to extras…I just hope they crawl the hell out of the cellar (and STAY THERE) by the end of the season. I had hoped not long ago for them to scratch back to .500 by year’s-end…that shit isn’t happening…