Sunday was a great day for baseball for two reasons.

A player more than deserving of a career milestone achieved it and another on the verge of a tainted accomplishment announced his retirement.

Ichiro Suzuki of the Marlins reached 3,000 Major League hits, fittingly with a triple. Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez said his last game will be Friday; unless he can hit four home runs this week he won’t become the fourth player in MLB history with 700 for his career.

Batting just .204 and rarely playing even against left-handed pitching, it’s obviously time for Rodriguez to retire before he is released by the Yankees.

As recently as last year when he hit 33 roundtrippers, four in a week would’ve been plausible for A-Rod, who had 13-consecutive 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons from 1998 to 2010. But so much of his production came while he was using performance enhancing drugs. And since that was exacerbated by Rodriguez not coming clean about it, most fans will be fine without him joining the 700-club populated by only Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).

How much do those numbers matter, anyway, with Bonds at the top of the list also taking the PED route?

While Bonds’ and Rodriguez’s power stats are inflated, you can say Suzuki’s hit parade is deflated and his road to 3,000 was the most challenging of any player who made it.

Ichiro is 42. A-Rod turned 41 a few days ago. When Rodriguez made his MLB debut with the Mariners in 1994, Suzuki was breaking out in his first full season with the big club of the Orix Blue Waves of Nippon Professional Baseball. He batted .385 with 210 hits (must’ve been all the good locomoco the previous year with the Hilo Stars of Hawaii Winter Baseball).

Suzuki dominated in Japan before making his MLB debut with the Mariners at age 27, starting the latest of any of the 30 players to have reached 3,000 hits. He’s done it in just 16 seasons.

Sorry, those 1,278 hits in Japan don’t count — nor should they; we’re talking Major League records, not pro baseball records.

But Pete Rose can’t rest too easy, as Suzuki has said he hopes to play until age 50. Let’s see … if Ichiro does last that long, he would have to average 156 hits a season to catch Rose at 4,256.

Hey, I’m not sure I would bet against it.

His triple helped the Marlins — who are chasing a playoff spot — beat the Rockies 10-7 Sunday. Suzuki’s batting average (.317) and OPS (.848) are among Miami’s leaders.

If Suzuki is true to his words (or, more exactly, those of his translator, published last month) he won’t hang on just to try for individual records:

“Are you at the end and can barely play and are just chasing this number and can barely get there? Or are you part of a team trying to win ballgames, going about your business properly as you go past that number? I think that is what I want to experience, and that is what is important for me.”

Those sentiments are certainly applicable to Alex Rodriguez right about now, as he prepares to transition from high-priced Yankees benchwarmer to high-priced Yankees advisor.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.