A Yankee (Not Rodriguez) Creates Buzz CHICAGO - After the 2000 World Series, when Alex Rodriguez was a free agent and a pipe dream for Mets fans, Bobby Valentine, then the Mets" manager, made a more realistic request to the team's assistant general manager, Omar Minaya. "He said, "Get me Ichiro," " Minaya said. That's the one guy he really wanted. Thirteen years later, Rodriguez and Suzuki are teammates in New York, if not on the Mets, and Suzuki is once again proving his value. When the Yankees re-signed Rodriguez after the 2007 season, there was some hope that he would become baseball's career home run leader while wearing pinstripes, just as Babe Ruth once did. That sort of honor now seems impossible for Rodriguez. Instead, Suzuki, acquired in a trade last July, is the Yankee on the threshold of a benchmark as he closes in on 4,000 combined hits in Japan and Major League Baseball. Suzuki had 1,278 hits over nine seasons in Japan, and entering Wednesday's game against the Chicago White Sox, he had 2,710 as a major leaguer. That total, 3,988, left him a dozen hits from becoming the third player to reach 4,000. Only Ty Cobb (4,189) and Pete Rose (4,256) are ahead of him, and Suzuki said he thought he could catch them both. Suzuki turns 40 on Oct. 22, but he said Wednesday that he had no plans to retire. "If I can play in games," he said through his interpreter, Alan Turner, "if I am able to play in enough games, I think I can do it." To match Rose's total, Suzuki will need 2,978 hits in the majors. At that point, he would need just 22 more to become the 29th player to reach 3,000 hits strictly in the United States. The last player to do so was Derek Jeter, in 2011. This season, Suzuki had 104 hits in 403 plate appearances entering Wednesday, batting .277. Suzuki, who is signed through next season, was on pace to finish with 150 hits this year. If he winds up with 140 hits this year and 140 again next year, he will have 4,164 total hits and will be within striking distance of Rose's mark in 2015. When Yankees reliever Shawn Kelley played alongside Suzuki in Seattle, from 2009 to 2012, the Mariners would marvel at Suzuki's ability to rap out hits. They had a saying in the bullpen and on the bench that if a ball off Suzuki's bat bounced two times in the infield, he would reach first base safely. He was that fast. If the infielders could get to the ball on one bounce, at least they had a chance. "You could pretty much count on it," Kelley said. Two bounces, and he was on first base. Suzuki is no longer as swift and nimble, his reflexes and musculature dulled over time. But he still conditions his body to an almost freakish degree, stretching and working his limbs at almost every free moment, whether in the clubhouse or in the outfield between pitches. Although he is more of a platoon player now, there are still more hits left in his scientifically balanced and measured bats - not to mention his eyes, hands and legs. "Mentally and physically, I feel like my abilities haven't changed," he said. I feel like I can still do the things I did back then. Suzuki will not get credit for his hits in Japan in the major league record book. Still, the United States and Japan are recognized as having the best leagues in the world, and for many, 4,000 hits mean 4,000 hits. "I believe that is true," said Hiroki Kuroda, who pitched for 11 years in Japan, although he never faced Suzuki there. It is not easy to get more than 1,000 hits in Japan or any top professional league. In the fall of 2000, as the Mariners, the Dodgers and the Mets placed bids for the right to negotiate with Suzuki, Valentine called him one of the five best players in the world. After the 2001 season, in which Suzuki collected 242 hits and batted .350, Valentine made a rare admission that he was wrong: Suzuki, he said, was one of the two best players in baseball. In the coming days or weeks, Suzuki, saying that his career is far from over, can help take the attention away from Rodriguez and the Biogenesis scandal. With 4,000 combined hits, he can show that there still is a Yankee who can reach a milestone. "But it's not like that's the goal, just to get there," he said. I don't feel like that's the end. When I do get there, obviously, it will feel good. But it's not going to be this overwhelming feat that is going to change anything.