Ichiro past Mantle?
 

Some hard to believe stats from 2011:

1. Ichiro Suzuki has just recently past the Mick in all time hits 2,422 to 2,415.

2. Derek Lowe past Koufax in wins 166 to 165.

3. Javier Vazquez past Christy Mathewson in SO 2,527 TO 2507.

4. And last but not least Mr. .164 Adam Dunn past Joe Dimaggio in HR'S 365-361.

-If I were asked to bet who was ahead on the all time list I would lose all four.

Compare these two players: Player A had a career average of .292, 509 HR and 1676 RBI. Player B had a career average of .271, 512 HR and 1453 RBI. Based on the numbers Player A must have been way better right? Player A is Gary Sheffield and Player B is Eddie Mathews. If you wanted to win some free beers at your local sports bar you could probably make comparisons like this all day. Reds catcher Ramon Hernadez has one more career home run than Pete Rose at 161 to 160. I'm guessing most people would lose any of these bets but that pretty much proves stats don't tell the whole story.

Sheffield = juicer. Mathews = probably lifted hay to get strong. Little difference there.

I'm just saying that if you look up enough stats you can probably find a ton of comparisons like Adam Dunn having more home runs than Joe Dimaggio, Gary Sheffield having over 200 more RBI than Eddie Mathews, Ramon Hernandez having more home runs than Pete Rose. My point was that there are probably tons of surprising stats where mediocre journeyman type players have better numbers in certain categories than hall of fame players if you look hard enough.

Just so we're clear, though...Ichiro is a Hall of Famer in waiting...