Yankees' Rodriguez Moves into Top 25 of All-Time Hits List

New York Yankees designated hitter Alex Rodriguez recorded the 3,020th hit of his career in Sunday's 8-6 win over the Boston Red Sox, tying Rafael Palmeiro for 25th place on the all-time hits list, per Sportsnet Stats.

After flying out and grounding out in his first two at-bats of Sunday's game, Rodriguez made his 3,020th hit count, lacing an RBI double to left-center field off Red Sox pitcher Wade Miley in the sixth inning, giving the Yankees a 4-3 lead that they would never relinquish.

Although he won't be going to Cincinnati for the All-Star Game, Rodriguez made a strong statistical case for a nomination during the first half of the season, producing 18 home runs, 51 RBI and 48 runs, not to mention an excellent .278/.382/.515 batting line.

Perhaps most surprising of all, the soon-to-be 40-year-old has played 81 of the Yankees' first 88 games, showing no signs of physical or mental rust from his lengthy suspension.

He is on pace for 33 homers, 94 RBI and 88 runs, with each of those numbers representing what would be his best total since at least 2010.

As for his standing on the all-time hits list, Rodriguez is actually tied for 24th place on MLB.com's list, but he's only 25th on Baseball-Reference.com's version.

The discrepancy is caused by differing hit totals for Hall of Famer Cap Anson, who's listed at 3,435 career hits by Baseball-Reference.com, compared to just 3,011 by MLB.com.

The difference, as explained by Baseball-Reference.com in this blog post, stems from the website's decision to count Anson's 423 hits in the National Association from 1871 to 1875.

The National Association was a predecessor to the National League, and while there's little question it was the pre-eminent league of its day, MLB and the National Baseball Hall of Fame do not recognize it as a major league, citing issues with record keeping, rules, schedules, quality of play and gambling, per Wikipedia.