On Sunday, July 30, 2017, Rangers’ third baseman Adrian Beltre became the 31st Major Leaguer in MLB History to ever reach 3000 career hits. Beltre joined George Brett and Wade Boggs as the only third baseman in history to record 3000 hits in their career, and just the fifth player born outside of the United States to do so joining Roberto Clemente (Puerto Rico), Rod Carew (Panama), Ichiro Suzuki (Japan), and Rafael Palmero (Cuba).

His 3000th hit was a double down the third base line off of Orioles lefty Wade Miley on a 3-0 pitch. It did seem fitting that Beltre would hit a double for #3000 since 20.2% of all of his MLB hits were doubles (tied for 4th highest in history). It was also his 605th career double tieing Paul Molitor for 14th all time.

The hit was Beltre’s 1111th hit with the Rangers in his career, he got 751 with the Mariners, 949 with the Dodgers, and 189 with the Red Sox and amazingly he never bunted for a hit.

Here is a spray chart of all 3000 hits of Beltre’s illustrious career.

The last player to record his 3000th hit was future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki who tripled on August 7th, 2016.

Beltre broke into the Major League at age 19 on June 24, 1998, and has since recorded 3000 hits (31st All time) 438 career home runs (38th all time), a .286 batting average, 92.4 WAR, 1607 RBI (35th all time), a .820 OPS, .841 Slugging Percentage, and a .339 OBP. He has also participated in 4 All-Star games, won 5 Gold Glove Awards, and won 4 Silver Sluggers.

Beltre had this to say about his accomplishments via CBS sports.

“Never in my life did I think about collecting 3,000 hits, playing 20 years, hitting 400-plus homers. I never expected that. I never saw myself doing that,” Beltre said. “When you play every day … and do the best you can to help your ball club, sometimes you accumulate numbers.”

Of all of the players in history to record 3000 hits the only players to not be inducted into the Hall of Fame are Pete Rose, Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro so there has never been a 3000 hit club member that was eligible for election to the hall that did not have PED allegations. So it is pretty safe to say that Adrian “Don’t touch my head” Beltre will be first ballot Hall of Famer once his playing days are over.

Sunday, July 30th, 2017 was definitely a great day for baseball as the future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre collected his well anticipated 3000th career hit. Who do you think will be the next player to reach 3000 career hits? Will it be Albert Pujols who currently has 2911? Oh yes, I forgot, I know that you guys will be harping on me in the comments if I don’t include a video of the hit so without further ado here it is.