Edgy Is the Crown of the Hit Kings Isao Harimoto, left, the only player to top 3,000 hits in Japan, with Ichiro Suzuki, who is nearing 4,000 hits between Japan and the major leagues. If one word can describe the members of baseball's 4,000-hit club, it is determination. A close second is anger. Pete Rose, nicknamed Charlie Hustle, once brutally injured a fellow player while trying to score in the All-Star Game. He is barred from the game for gambling on his own team's games. In the 4,000-hit club, he is known as the nice one. Ty Cobb, the club's founding member, was nearly as famous for his racism and propensity for spiking players as he was for his batting prowess. In 1910, when Cobb's teammates believed Nap Lajoie of the Cleveland Naps had ended Cobb's streak of batting titles, many were reported to have sent Lajoie letters of congratulations. Some time in the next few weeks, the 4,000-hit club may have a third member, one whose first name, when translated into English, is "most cheerful boy." But close watchers of Ichiro Suzuki, the Yankees" 39-year-old right fielder, know that his demeanor is a little more complicated than his sunny name would suggest. As Suzuki sits at 3,993 combined hits, accumulated between Nippon Professional Baseball and the major leagues, it is worth trying to put his hit total in perspective. Baseball fans love to argue statistics. Mentions of Willie Mays or Ted Williams are often accompanied by the caveat that they lost time to war. Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier, would have had even better statistics had he been allowed to play before he was 28. Some think Suzuki, with 1,278 hits in Japan before making his debut with the Seattle Mariners at 27, would have exceeded that total in the United States because the season is longer here, while others say he would have had fewer hits because he would have needed more time to establish himself. "We have to be careful here," Tom Shieber, the curator of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, said in comparing Suzuki's accomplishments with those of Cobb and Rose. If we just decide to define major league baseball as the two leagues in North America as well as Nippon Professional Baseball, then we've got those three guys. But that's an arbitrary decision. The context of records in baseball is a topic Shieber has tried to address in a current exhibit at the Hall of Fame called One for the Books. "There are often stories behind records that illuminate them," Shieber said. "Instead of just tossing out a number, we say, "Here's why." " To include Suzuki's hits in Japan, on the argument that they came as part of his professional career, opens a can of worms. The same logic could be extended to the minor leagues in the United States and would open the 4,000-hit club to Hank Aaron (3771 + 324 = 4,095) and Stan Musial (3,630 + 371 = 4,001). And that does not account for the partial season Aaron spent in the Negro leagues. But should one choose to accept his combined hit total, Suzuki, some would say, would be a good fit in an exclusive fraternity whose two current members had less-than-stellar reputations with fans and the news media. While not outwardly angry like Rose or Cobb, Suzuki has had his detractors. "Ichiro's problem is he is too aloof," said Robert Whiting, an expert on Japanese baseball and the author of "The Meaning of Ichiro." I remember going to Seattle and watching him after the games, and he'd sit at his locker with his back to the reporter, and his interpreter would field the questions and he'd give his answer and the interpreter would translate, and he'd never look at the reporters. It was rude. He also alienated teammates, with reports that many were frustrated that Suzuki seemed more concerned with increasing his hit total than helping them win. That criticism has followed Suzuki since his days in Japan. As a rookie, he became the first Japanese player to top 200 hits in a season. In an article about the achievement for Aera, a magazine in Japan, Suzuki's high school coach, Takeshi Nakamura, said: "He thinks of his own record first. That's why he didn't cry when we lost. Interestingly, the only player to top 3,000 hits in Japanese baseball, Isao Harimoto, was likewise far from a paragon of virtue. An ethnic Korean who as a boy survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Harimoto was an all-around player who hit more than 500 home runs and stole more than 300 bases. But he also had a dark side. "Harimoto was known as a troublemaker," Whiting said. He was arrested a couple times and he liked to fight and drink a lot.