"I don't know if people stop to think about that," said manager Mike Matheny, who was among those in the Cardinals dugout to applaud Ichiro for the achievement. "You're looking at over 4,000 [hits] being 20 years of 200 hits. That's unbelievable. To put that into perspective is really mind-boggling. I know some people are going to say it doesn't equate because of what he did over in Japan, but to me, it's impressive no matter where he is.
"[He's] quite a player, and I think he's going to go down as one of the greatest hitters of all time.