Personally don't care about MLB stats. Baseball stats matter. I view Sadaharu Oh as the all time home run king (shorter seasons), Cal Ripken as the "Iron Man", and Pete Rose as the all time hits leader. But I also have a few cavaets.
1) Sadaharu's single season home run record (55) in Japan should be held by Tuffy Rhodes, Alex Cabrera or Randy Bass as all finished with 55 but were intentionally walked when they played teams managed by Sadaharu in the last few games of the season.
2) Cal Ripken didn't become the world baseball Iron Man until June 14th, 1996 when he passed Sachio Kinugasa.
3) Pete Rose is only counted as the hits leader because Ty Cobb never played 162 games (162 games didn't start until 1961). Ty Cobb was passed due to the extra games. 67 hits is the difference between them. In fact statistically, Pete and Ty both played 24 years. Over a 162 game season... Pete averaged 194 hits a season, Ty Cobb 224 (extrapolated). Ty Cobb would have had well over 5,000 hits. While Pete would be at 4,650.
4) George Sisler is the all time single season hits leader, not Ichiro, due to game difference.
It's these differences that matter. Extra games makes a difference. League does not. Same concept... pitch the ball, hit the ball. It's why to me Ichiro would be the behind Ty Cobb as all time hits leader if he had 162 games in Japan.. hell he had over 200 hits in a 130 game season.