My friend Jim called me with the Ichiro news yesterday, and, as we began to talk it out, it occurred to me that the Yankees roster now included Derek Jeter with his 3,000+ hits, Alex Rodriguez with his 2,800+ hits, and Ichiro Suzuki with his 2,500+ hits. I wondered: Has any team in baseball history had more career hits on its active roster than this version of the 2012 New York Yankees?

I still don't know the answer to that. But the Stats & Info column on ESPN.com did include this interesting tid-bit in its Ichiro piece:

The Yankees have three players on their team with 2,500 or more hits-- Jeter, Rodriguez, and Ichiro.

The Elias Sports Bureau notes that this is the third time in major-league history that a team had three players with 2,500 or more hits play for them in the same season. The other two are the 1927 Philadelphia Athletics (Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Zack Wheat) and the 1928 Athletics (Cobb, Collins, and Tris Speaker).

The Yankees are playing the M's at Safeco Field this week--I'll be going to the game Wednesday afternoon--so I thought I'd compare career hits on the two active rosters.

Not pretty. Ten of their 13 guys have more than 1,000 career hits. One of ours does. And he sucks. And he might be gone by the end of August: dropped if he can't be traded.

With those kinds of numbers I can see why the Yankees carry 13 position players and we carry 12. We need our extra man in the bullpen rather than the bench. If things get dicey, we'll just send up Kawasaki and his career 14 hits. Problem solved.

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