Nothing in sports is as quintessential as a hit in baseball. The windup, the release, the swing of the lumber, the crack of the bat, the aesthetic beauty of a ball falling where defenders aren’t or going over their heads in a hurry—that, more than anything, is what baseball is.
That, combined with the pure difficulty of hitting a baseball, has made the 3,000 hit club one of the most prestigious milestones in baseball. There’s just one problem: we may not see another member punch their ticket to the club in a long, long time.
In the 24 seasons from 1995 through 2018, there was an average of one player every other season who reached 3,000 hits.