27 MLB records that will never be broken
12. player. 61. . Pete Rose. 1963-1986. 4,256 Career Hits
For decades, it appeared that no one would ever collect more hits than Ty Cobb’s 4,189, yet Pete Rose became the new all-time “Hit King” with a single to left field on September 11, 1985. Rose finished with 4,256 career hits spread across 24 big league seasons and sits alone atop the leaderboard, where he will likely stay forever.
Rose and Cobb are the only two players in Major League Baseball history to collect more than 4,000 hits. Hall of Famers Hank Aaron (3,771), Stan Musial (3,630) and Tris Speaker (3,514) are the only players to surpass 3,500. Derek Jeter climbed to sixth in the record books with 3,465 hits before he retired in 2014 – the closest anyone has come in the last 30 years.
Had Ichiro Suzuki played his entire professional career in the United States, it’s possible he would be a challenge to Rose. After all, Ichiro set the single-season hits record with 262 in 2004, had ten consecutive seasons with at least 200 hits, and has collected 2,873 hits to date after playing his first nine seasons in Japan.
With the top seven active players on the career hits list all 35 or older, Miguel Cabrera, who has 2,233 hits at the age of 32, is the biggest threat to Rose today – though he’s a definite long shot to do it. With some quick math, if Cabrera plays ten more years and retires at 42, he’ll need to average 207 hits per season to set a new record. Given that Cabrera’s career best was 205 hits in 2012, that seems unlikely.
Next: 2,795 Career Walks