What do you know? I stand corrected on that. It seems the BBWAA are somewhat more generous with first-ballot votes nowadays.
Interestingly, if you don’t count the original five inductees (which are first-ballot Hall of Famers by definition), there were only eight between 1936 and 1977 (and none between 1936 and 1962). There were 13 between 1979 and 1990; just eight between 1991 and 2000; and ten since then. Quite a few more than I thought.
With this information, I think I agree with Ichiro being a strong candidate for the first ballot. Ignorance fought!
Still doesn’t mean he has 4000 hits, though. Fie on that.
It doesn’t matter if the 4000 hits count in the MLB record book. He got those hits. Sure, it’s reasonable to say the Japanese league isn’t quite as competitive as the MLB, but if you’ve ever watched Ichiro play you should recognize his greatness in any league. It’s not just the hit totals. It’s his all around play, including that rocket arm that is amazing from a player his size. It’s been a joy to watch him play baseball.
I agree- he’s had over 200 hits (sometimes a LOT over!) a year for most of his time in MLB, and there’s no reason to think he couldn’t have done similarly well if he’d started playing with the Mariners at age 21.
Hence, I think he’d have close to 4,000 hits even if he HAD played in America all along.
I know nobody likes batting average anymore, but since that’s the only stat I could quickly calculate… Ichiro hit .331 over his first 10 seasons in the U.S., and anybody would agree that’s outstanding. In Japan he hit .353 over 9 seasons, and that’s including his age 18 and 19 seasons where he didn’t play much or hit very well.