Here’s a parlor game popular among baseball junkies: Imagine the stats Ichiro Suzuki would have amassed if he had started his career in the U.S.

And the possibilities are tantalizing, given that Ichiro tallied 1,278 hits over nine seasons in Japan before joining the Seattle Mariners in 2001 when he was 27 years old. By comparison, all-time hit king Pete Rose had 903 hits when he turned 27. The active hits leader, Alex Rodriguez, had 1,257 when he reached that age.

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