Al Kaline Becomes The First A.L. Player In 49 Years To Get 3,000 Hits – 1974

Baltimore, MD,  Sept. 24 – KALINE GETS HIT NO. 3,000 — Al Kaline swings at the first pitch in the fourth inning and lashes a double to right field for the 3,000th hit of his major league career. The hit came off Baltimore pitcher Dave McNally and enabled Kaline to become the 12th player in major league history to reach the 3,000 hit plateau. He was the first American Leaguer to reach that mark since 1925. credit AP Wirephoto, September 29, 1974

In August 1974 Kaline told San Francisco Examiner sports editor Roger Williams of his goal. “If I get my 3,000 hits, I’ll definitely quit after this season.”

But what if he did not get to 3,000 he was asked.

“I’ll come back next year,” Kaline said. “If I only have five or six hits to go, I would hope that I could become a player-coach. However if the manager felt I was still able to help the club with my hitting I would play out the season.”

The news slug does not mention the Tigers lost the game 5-4  to the Orioles. The slug also fails to identify who the last American League player was to attain 3,000 hits before Kaline. In 1925 on May 17, Tris Speaker and on June 3, Eddie Collins each got their 3,000th career hit.

At age 39 Kaline had a productive 1974 playing 147 games, hitting .262 with 13 home runs and a team leading 64 RBI’s. But the Detroit Tigers finished in the basement of the A.L. East with a 72-90 record.

3,000 Hits, Minus One Home Run

One strange footnote about Kaline’s statistics. Kaline finished his career with 399 home runs and 3,007 hits at the end of the 1974 season. If Kaline had stuck around to hit one more home run he would have become the first player in American League history to have 400 home runs and 3,000 hits.

There was one Kaline home run wiped from the record book.

With Detroit playing at home on June 1, 1958, Kaline hit a home run in the second inning off of White Sox pitcher Ray Moore. But in the bottom half of the fourth inning, heavy rain began and after a 56 minute delay umpire Bill Summers called the game off.  Just one more half inning and the game would have become official and Kaline would have had 400 home runs in his career.

Instead Carl Yastzemski became the first A.L. player to achieve the feat when he collected both his 3,000 hit and 400th home run in 1979. National League players, Stan Musial, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays had all reached the 400 / 3,000 mark in the 1960s.

There are now 33 players with 3,000 or more base hits. Miguel Cabrera, in 2022, was the most recent player to reach the 3,000 mark.

Al Kaline was elected in 1980 to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first eligible year for induction. He became only the tenth player in Hall of Fame history to receive that honor.