2015’s Baseball Season is off to a great and interesting start. 25% of the way into the season and in the American League and you have Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Houston leading their divisions – who would have thought?
You also have some of Baseball’s most prominent players coming to the point in their career where their lifetime statistics are starting to challenge or pass Babe’s career marks. While some statisticians would argue Ruth’s career RBI mark is second to Hank Aaron at 2,214, according to Elias Sports Bureau, official statistician for MLB, Babe Ruth is fourth on the list for all-time RBIs with 1992. As of today, Alex Rodriguez shares that mark with the Babe and will likely take sole possession of fourth on the list sometime this week.
In addition, Miami Marlin and Japanese great Ichiro Suzuki collected his 2,874th hit on Friday, surpassing Babe Ruth’s mark to become number 42 on the all-time hits list. This milestone for Suzuki is particularly impressive when you consider that he spent the first eight seasons of his professional career playing in Japan, where he amassed an additional 1,278 hits. When asked about passing Babe Ruth, Suzuki provided this response through an interpreter: “Of course I’m happy, but there is that impact of Babe Ruth. He’s one of the big names of history, somebody that’s obviously very important in baseball. This would be a different story if I tied Babe Ruth in home runs. I think it’s almost rude to him to be able to say, ‘You now have the same amount of hits,’ just because we’re so different.” A classy and modest response from Suzuki. We hope he finds his way to the pinnacle 3,000 hit list before he wraps up his career MLB and the becomes first Japanese player to make it to the Hall of Fame!
