Depending on who's looking at it, Miami Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki will soon pass Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose in hits.
In his major-league career, Ichiro had collected 2,977 hits coming into Tuesday's game with San Diego. Not bad, but it's still a far cry from Rose's all-time record of 4,256 hits.
However, if you include the hits he racked up while playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan, Ichiro came into Tuesday's game one hit away from tying Rose's all-time record.
Given that his record is on the line, Rose in not a big fan of including Ichiro's NPB hits with his major-league accomplishments, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
"It sounds like in Japan they're trying to make me the Hit Queen," Rose told USA Today sports. "I'm not trying to take anything away from Ichiro, he's had a Hall of Fame career, but the next thing you know, they'll be counting his high-school hits.
"I don't think you're going to find anybody with credibility say that Japanese baseball is equivalent to major-league baseball. There are too many guys that fail here, and then become household names there, like Tuffy Rhodes. How can he not do anything here, and hit [a record-tying] 55 home runs [in 2001] over there?
"It has something to do with the caliber of personnel."
Since MLB is unlikely to combine Ichiro's hits, it's up to fans to decide how to figure out the situation. Some may choose to consider all of Ichiro's hits, and others may disregard them completely.
An honest Day
Jason Day picked a funny way to put the rest of the field on notice.
Less than 48 hours before the start of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, the world's No. 1-ranked golfer said, "I've never been more stressed in my life than right now."
Judging by the overheated headlines about his health in some golf outlets recently, you'd think Day, 28, was in a fight for his life. In truth, he's simply shaking off a cold he likely caught from his father-in-law two weeks ago. That kind of scrutiny, as well as the stress, is part of the rarefied spot Day holds in the game at the moment.
"People ask me how I feel, I usually tell them how I feel, and that's just me being honest," he added a moment later. "I'm not trying to make any excuses this week."
No. 9
Wayne Gretzky wore No. 99 in a tribute to Gordie Howe, a man he got to know long before Gretzky became known as The Great One.
Howe, who wore No. 9, passed away last week at the age of 88. Thousands of people stood in line to pay their respects to Howe on Tuesday.
"It was one of the great honors of my life," Gretzky said. "He was everything to me. Not everybody gets to meet their hero or their idol. And sometimes when you meet them, it wasn't as good as you thought it would be. I got so lucky that the guy I chose happened to be so special."
Sports on 06/15/2016