Bonds: Ichiro's hit count has to include Japan
As far as Barry Bonds is concerned, Ichiro Suzuki's hits from his playing days in Japan should be counted along with his tally in MLB.
Some baseball minds - including current all-time hits leader Pete Rose - feel Suzuki's 1,278 hits in the Nippon Professional Baseball League shouldn't factor into his career total, which currently sits one shy of Rose's 4,256. Bonds, though, feels the Japanese outfielder's success overseas definitely plays a part.
"You have to include Japan, but there will always be that when you run with that story," Bonds said, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports. “You can do either one of two things. You can either respect Ichiro and scream at all of the Japanese people who kept him there 10 years longer than he should have been, and he should have been here earlier. Or, you can say he wasn't in the major leagues long enough to be in that category.
"But to me, he's in that category regardless of where he started from."
Related: Rose: Ichiro's Japan fans trying to make me the 'Hit Queen'
While Rose has said he won't acknowledge when Suzuki passes his mark, Jeff Idelson, the president of Baseball's Hall of Fame, has already announced the institution will recognize Suzuki's overall feat.
"Absolutely we will," Idelson said. "Four thousand, two-hundred and fifty-six hits in any league is out of this galaxy in terms of difficulty. It's a ridiculous amount of hits, and the fact that he did it in Japan and the major leagues has its own set of challenges different from the ones that Pete faces. Acclimating to this culture is a challenge of itself."
Related: Ichiro: 'All my stuff' will go to Cooperstown when I die
Bonds feels Rose and Suzuki standing tall together at the top would be a moment of unity for the United States and Japan. If another Japanese star surfaces overseas, though, the all-time home runs leader has an idea to prevent the same debate from popping up again in the future.
"Don’t let him play long over there," Bonds joked, "so we don’t have to have the debate anymore."