Miguel Cabrera of Detroit Tigers Reaches 3,000 Hits


Top players make a manager want to change the rules. Specifically, one rule: the annoying requirement for a formation that obliges every hitter to take their turn. With Miguel Cabrera on your team, waiting is the hardest part.

“I wish he could hit the ball with every hit,” 91-year-old Jack McKeon said on the phone from his North Carolina home this week. “He’d hit a sacrifice fly, he’d hit a point, he’d take a ground kick, even to the point in the Bartman game where he-his-named hit the ground ball. He was the catalyst. Something good was going on with this guy.”

Cabrera was just 20 years old at the time playing for the Florida Marlins when he surprised bouncer Chicago Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series. The mistake helped turn Steve Bartman from footnote to focus, a fan who deflected the foul ball to the left-court line on kick as the marlins rushed into the World Series with wins in Games 6 and 7.

At the time, Cabrera had collected just 84 career hits during the regular season. On Saturday, he was the 33rd player in major league history with 3,000 alone against the Colorado Rockies at Comerica Park.

After collecting three hits to hit 2,999 on Wednesday, Cabrera’s 3,000-hit quest was delayed by Thursday’s 0v-3 performance (and a deliberate march on the game that raises some eyebrows), and rain delayed Friday’s scheduled game against Colorado. That feat finally came in the first half of Saturday, which will become official at the end of the fifth half.

Cabrera’s first hit was very fitting: two runs at the end of the 11th inning on June 20, 2003 at Miami Gardens, Florida, a game-winning home run. Players will be featured on two of baseball’s most prestigious charts.

Just six people amassed 3,000 hits and 500 home runs: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez. Cabrera in this group had the best batting average (.310) and base percentage (.387) before Saturday’s games.

Cabrera’s numbers will change and likely drop before he retires; Signed with Detroit until 2023. But for now, they underline Cabrera’s skill as a full-blown hitter. He’s not exactly a free swinger, but his goal is to find his way around his base. Two players (Sammy Sosa and Ernie Banks) with just 500 homers have less career marches.

Cabrera won four batting titles in a five-year period from 2011 to 2015. Two other players, Roberto Clemente and Bill Madlock, who are only two right-handers in the integrated major leagues, have amassed four batting titles. No matter how good they were, neither Clemente nor Madlock could reach 30 homers in a season. Cabrera has done this 10 times.

He was 16 when the Marlins transferred him from Venezuela for $1.9 million in 1999. Four years later, he beat the AA Class Southern League with the Carolina Mudcats averaging .365 in 69 games and a slowing percentage of .609 – yet he mostly played third base and Mike Lowell was established in Miami.

That didn’t worry McKeon, who took over as manager in May. His team had promising young shooters, but the roster needed more punch. McKeon would find room for a bat like Cabrera’s.

“I knew he wouldn’t be able to play third because we had Mike Lowell, but I’m going to take him off the field – don’t worry, we’ll find out,” McKeon said. “And he left the field like it was nobody’s business.”

Cabrera had only played three games on the left field in the juniors, but in the seniors he started every day there in his first week. In October 2003, McKeon shifted Cabrera to right field. He has never played in that position, but has started seven of the Marlins’ last 10 postseason games on the way to a World Series victory over the Yankees.

Cabrera’s kick in the first half of Game 4 in Florida heralded the greatness of the future. With classic recoil from a cocky gunslinger, Roger Clemens fired a fastball at 94 miles per hour high and inside from the inside. Cabrera looked at Clemens, hung on seven-court, and another fast ball pierced over the right midfield fence at 94 mph above and outside the plate.

“It didn’t scare the man off,” McKeon said. “He wasn’t scared. This man was confident and knew he had the power to do it.”

Over the next 13 seasons Cabrera would demonstrate this with extraordinary consistency and endurance. He hit more hits than any other major league player from 2004 to 2016 – and also produced at the highest rate. Of the 104 players to have played at least 5,000 plates in these seasons, Cabrera had the best percentage of plus slugs on a basis: .968.

He did Do most of his damage with Tigers.In December 2007, he traded six players for himself and left-handed shooter Dontrelle Willis. Two of the players – outfielder Cameron Maybin and left-handed pitcher Andrew Miller – would have long careers. But the deal was a blow for the Tigers, who would win four consecutive division titles and an American League pennant at Cabrera’s peak.

After the 2012 triple crown season, tigers It rewarded Cabrera with an eight-year, $240 million contract that didn’t start until 2016. The deal was too much of a deal; Cabrera’s production has inevitably dwindled and has been a hit at roughly the league average over the past five seasons. The Tigers have dropped in the rankings and are still being rebuilt.

But the contract, if nothing else, ensured Cabrera’s landmark moments came true for the Tigers, the team that most benefited from his 20-year-old promise. McKeon never changed the ground rules of baseball, but he was absolutely right. About Cabrera.

Indeed, something good was happening with that man.



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