Rod Carew: Leader Among Leaders...But Not Unanimous
Will Ichiro do him one better?
1973 Topps Batting Leaders (#61) - Card of the Day
Ichiro Suzuki finally comes up for Hall of Fame consideration on the 2025 ballot.
I say “finally” because it seems like Ichiro has been a “Future Hall of Famer” basically forever. And in this internet world of ours, where trends and people and technologies and movements come and go and return at breakneck speed, that’s pretty much true.
Even before Ichiro took his first MLB pitch, he was a legend in Japan and had been anointed as the next big thing in the States. He lived up to the hype by winning the 2001 American League Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards, then collected 200 or more hits in each of the next nine seasons.
Ichiro then played parts of nine seasons after that, winding down his career with a brief two-game run with the Mariners in Tokyo to open the 2019 season. That extended his Cooperstown wait time by a year, but now the time is here.
With two batting titles, 3089 hits, a .311 lifetime batting average, 509 stolen bases, ten All-Star appearances, and ten Gold Gloves, Ichiro is a lock for induction next summer. The only question remaining is whether he’ll be a unanimous pick, joining Mariano Rivera as the only one-hundred-percent men in the Hall.
Thirty-four years ago, Ichiro’s top comp, by measure of Baseball Reference’s Similarity Score, was generating the same question — how could anyone not vote for Rod Carew?
Here was a man, after all, who won seven American League batting titles during his 19-year career. He was also the last man since Ted Williams in 1941 to make a real run at .400 in a full season. In 1977, Carew hit an amazing .388 in 155 games.
Sure, George Brett hit .390 in 1980 and Tony Gwynn was always a threat — Mr. Padre would hit .394 in 1994. But those guys didn’t have quite the grind that Carew did, appearing in 117 and 110 games, respectively.
Carew’s second batting title featured a relatively minor showing of .318 for the Twins in 1972, a mark that National League champ Billy Williams bettered by 15 points. Topps captured the pair of future Hall of Famers in their 1973 set, dedicating card #61 to the “1972 BATTING LEADERS.”
If you have this card salted away in a dark corner somewhere, this is a great time to dust it off. Not only does Ichiro bring up thoughts of Carew, but Williams is one of the top comps for Carlos Beltran, also on the 2025 ballot.
As for Carew, his 3053 hits, .328 batting average, 445 doubles, 112 triples, 353 stolen bases, 1967 Rookie of the Year award, and whopping 18 All-Star selections were enough for him to sail into Cooperstown.
But those credentials were not enough to make it unanimous. In 1991, his first year on the ticket, Carew appeared on 401 of 443 ballots, a 90.5% showing. That still put him at the top of a class that also included Gaylord Perry and Fergie Jenkins.
So, will Ichiro top Carew’s showing? Given the build-up around Ichiro’s inevitable election, 100% seems like a real possibility, especially since Mo broke the seal on that barrier a few years ago.
In that context, Carew never stood a chance at unanimity, not when the likes of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Walter Johnson, and everyone else before him had fallen short. But, hey, 90% is nothing to sneeze at, and Carew just may have led the league in appearing on league leader cards.
I’ll leave that very meta research to you.
Great piece -- y'all got mad hits like you was Rod Carew!