Mike Celizic

With Alex Rodriguez already on his 10th straight 100-RBI season and the youngest ever to hit 500 home runs, it’s probably about time to admit the obvious: he’s the greatest hitter this generation is ever going to see and one of the greatest ever.

It’s all there in the numbers, the holy writ of baseball. The home-run total is the one that jumps out at you, a total that only Jimmie Foxx had previously reached before the age of 33.

But Foxx lived as hard as he played — legend has it he slid on his stomach to avoid breaking the flask in his hip pocket — and hit only 34 more home runs in the rest of his career, which lasted until he was 37. A-Rod’s lifestyle may include a detour to a lissome blonde now and then — at least that’s what The New York Post says — but it doesn’t involve excesses of food and drink, or, as far as we know, drugs.

In other words, A-Rod is in the absolute prime of his career. And if he doesn’t get hurt, he’s going to be the man who one day will allow us to stop having to say that Barry Bonds is the greatest home-run hitter of all time.

A-Rod is about 250 behind Bonds now, and Bonds if 43 years old. All A-Rod has to do is hit about 45 a year to catch Bonds in six years, when A-Rod will be 37 or 38.

Barring injury, A-Rod is going to retire with the numbers that his agent, Scott Boras, said he’d have back when he was negotiating the $250 million, 10-year contract we keep hearing so much about. But if the man is the best slugger in the game, you have to say he deserves to also be the best-paid hitter. And if his leg falls off today and he never plays another game, he’s already a Hall of Famer.

The home runs are hardly the measure of what A-Rod has done. What’s perhaps more impressive is his total of 10 straight seasons with at least 100 runs and 100 RBI.

Considering all the great sluggers the game has produced, from Ruth to Gehrig to DiMaggio to Williams to Musial to Mays to Mantle to Jackson on down to the present, you’d think somebody else would have done that by now.

And you’d be right, but just barely. Only one other player has 10 straight seasons with both 100 runs and 100 RBI. His name is Lou Gehrig, and he ran his streak to 13 straight years before being leveled by the disease that’s named after him.

The only hitter today who compares to A-Rod is Manny Ramirez, who needs to reach 100 RBI this year to join A-Rod at 10 straight seasons. Ramirez can be called a better hitter — he hits for a higher average — but he’s not the slugger and run-producer A-Rod is. At age 35, he’s still 15 home runs shy of 500, and he’s scored 100 runs in just five seasons.

But back to those consecutive 100-RBI seasons. The only other player with 13 straight is Foxx, who had 13 straight 100-RBI seasons, but he didn’t score 100 runs in each of those seasons, falling seven short in what would have been the third year of the streak.

After Gehrig and Foxx, the next-longest streak of 100-RBI seasons I could find belongs to Al Simmons, who ran off 11 straight for the Athletics and White Sox from 1924-34, but Simmons scored 100 in just six of those seasons.

Great records grow from consistency, and A-Rod is as consistent a run producer as we’ve ever seen. Ruth had just eight straight 100-RBI seasons.

Slide show   The Week in Sports Pictures Fireworks, crash landings, Wimbledon theatrics and more. more photos

That’s how many Ted Williams had, although he probably would have had 11 had not World War II intervened. Joe DiMaggio, who also lost three years to the war, had seven straight. Willie Mays had eight straight.

Hank Aaron had 11 100-RBI seasons overall, but never more than five in a row. Stan Musial had 10 total and five straight.

And Mickey Mantle? He had just four 100-RBI seasons in his career, no two of them consecutive. Another slugger never to do it in back-to-back years was Reggie Jackson.

Barry Bonds, the man A-Rod should supplant, has had 12 100-RBI seasons, but he’s never done it for more than four straight years.

All those great sluggers were beaten by two players we all know with nine straight seasons of 100 — Rafael “I Never Did Steroids” Palmiero and Sammy “Me Neither” Sosa.

MORE FROM BASEBALL

Baseball Section Front

Youkilis’ HRs help Smoltz get first Boston win   Angels score 7 in fifth to rally past Yankees Francoeur delivers in debut to back up Santana   Howard’s HR sparks Phillies’ 9th-inning rally Lilly earns 100th win, leads Cubs over Cards Brewers bullpen holds on to top Dodgers Nats homer in 3 straight at-bats, beat Astros Giants' Cain hit by liner, bruises pitching arm Rays' Navarro having tests after getting hit in mask Church happy with Braves, no anger toward Mets Baseball Section Front   Add Baseball headlines to your news reader: