Pete Rose - 1979 (208 hits)
There was plenty of excitement in Philadelphia ahead of the 1979 season. One of the best lineups in baseball had only gotten better with the addition of Pete Rose, the consensus best hitter in the game.
Rose had been part of the Reds' 'big red machine', which had gone to four World Series during the 1970s (winning two of them) and he was expected to bring similar success to the Phillies. Ironically though, 1979 would represent the team's worst record during a eight-year period, when they would only twice fail to qualify for the playoffs.
Individually however, Rose would be as good as advertised. Not that the signs were there early of what was to come, as he produced 'only' 24 hits in April.
The 17-time All-Star stepped it up in May with 42 hits. He reached the unofficial halfway point of the season with 96 hits, after producing another 30 during June.
With 29 and 32 hits in July and August respectively, Rose found himself delicately posed on 157 entering the final month of the season. What followed, was one of the most inspiring individual efforts you could see, as he stepped up his game to finish the 1979 campaign with a flurry.
The three-time NL batting champion would record a phenomenal 51 hits during September. He reached the 200-mark with six games to go and finished with 208 overall, in a season where he led the AL in OBP.
Interestingly this represented the 10th and final time Rose had 200+ hits in a season, and to this day he is tied with Ichiro Suzuki for the most times ever in Major League history. In terms of team success, he would more than justify his signing the following year, when he helped the Phillies win their first ever World Series.