April 15, 2000: Cal Ripken Jr. collects his 3,000th hit

In addition to his seemingly unbreakable streak of 2,632 consecutive games played, the illustrious 21-year career of Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. included a Rookie of the Year Award, two Most Valuable Player Awards, 19 consecutive All-Star Game appearances, eight Silver Slugger Awards, and two Gold Glove Awards. In 1983 he led the major leagues in hits (211) and doubles (47) while sparking the Baltimore Orioles to a World Series victory. His breaking of Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played streak in 1995 is one of the iconic moments in baseball history, and he is credited with helping to rejuvenate baseball after the strike of 1994. 

Ripken was raised in Aberdeen, Maryland, and starred in both baseball and soccer at Aberdeen High School. He was exposed to professional baseball from an early age because his father, Cal Ripken Sr., was a longtime coach and manager in the Orioles organization.1 Baltimore selected Ripken in the second round of the 1978 draft. He made his major-league debut in 1981, shifted from third base to shortstop in 1982, and remained an Oriole until his retirement in 2001.2

A 1991 Sports Illustrated cover story during Ripken’s second MVP season reported that Gene Mauch, who had managed against him in the 1980s, “said Ripken has the worst swing of any great player he had ever seen.”3 Regardless of its aesthetics or mechanics, Ripken’s righty swing was a consistent weapon for Baltimore. He averaged 169 hits per season for 17 seasons (1982 to 1998) and finished his career with 603 doubles, 17th on the all-time list as of 2022.

Ripken reached 1,000 career hits with a bases-loaded, two-run single in his 894th game, on June 16, 1987. As Ripken continued to appear in the lineup, day in and day out, it took 993 more games to get to 2,000 hits.4 He reached that milestone with an RBI double off Wilson Álvarez of the Chicago White Sox on July 10, 1993.

Ripken voluntarily ended his extraordinary consecutive games played streak near the end of the 1998 season. He played in roughly half of Baltimore’s games in 1999 and finished that year with 2,991 career hits, just nine shy of the 3,000-hit plateau. With the milestone in sight, Ripken’s pursuit of 3,000 hits became the focus of many preseason questions in 2000. Ripken replied, “Every time we get a chance to celebrate someone getting 3,000 hits, it isn’t a celebration for the individual person. It’s a celebration for the history and for our love of the game. That’s why I’ll be happy in the celebration. But I won’t feel it’s for me.”5

The Iron Man, now 39 years old and playing third base, collected three hits during Baltimore’s homestand to open the 2000 season. Three more hits in Kansas City and Minnesota left him sitting on 2,997 going into the second game of the series with the Twins on April 15. The 18,745 fans who attended the Saturday evening game at the Metrodome were about to see history made.

The season was still young as the 5-5 Orioles prepared to face the 4-8 Twins on Tax Day. The Orioles had reached the American League Championship Series in 1996 and 1997 but were bound for their third losing season in a row, a drought that eventually spanned 14 seasons and lasted until 2012. The Twins, World Series champions in 1987 and 1991, were headed for their eighth straight losing campaign but building with youth, developing the team that won three straight AL Central Division titles from 2002 through 2004.

The starting pitcher for the Orioles was right-hander Calvin Maduro. Maduro had made 13 starts for the Phillies (with a 3-7 record) in 1997 but had spent the previous two years pitching at the Triple-A level. He was making his second start of 2000 after allowing six earned runs in four innings against the Detroit Tigers on April 7 without getting a decision. The Twins countered with veteran righty Sean Bergman. Bergman, in the final season of his eight-year career, was making his third start of the season. He had allowed nine earned runs in 8⅓ innings in those two games, but had not gotten a decision in either contest.

Bergman began the game with a seven-pitch battle against Brady Anderson. Anderson ended the at-bat with a double to right-center field. The next batter, Mike Bordick, sent the first pitch he saw into center field to drive in Anderson and give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. Four batters later Ripken grounded out to third base with men on the corners to end the inning. Maduro set the Twins down in order in the bottom half.    

Bergman needed only 10 pitches to retire the Orioles in the top of the second. But catcher Charles Johnson sent one of those pitches over the right-field wall to increase Baltimore’s lead to 2-0. In the bottom of the second, Maduro once again set the Twins down in order. Both pitchers accomplished that feat in the third.

Baltimore designated hitter Harold Baines—at age 41 in the 21st season of his career—singled to open the top of the fourth, bringing Ripken to the plate. A line-drive single to right field (career hit number 2,998) sent Baines to third. Jeff Conine’s single scored Baines and made the Orioles’ lead 3-0. Bergman retired the next three batters to end the inning without further damage.

Minnesota rallied in the fourth. A single by Cristian Guzmán and a walk to Matt Lawton brought Corey Koskie to the plate with men on first and second and two outs. Koskie, who had doubled and tripled in a three-hit effort the previous day, tripled for the second consecutive game,6 which drove in two runs and made the score 3-2. Ron Coomer followed Koskie’s triple with a double to tie the game.   

The score wasn’t knotted for long. Bordick doubled off Bergman to open the fifth. He scored on a single by B.J. Surhoff to put the Orioles back on top, 4-3. After Bergman retired Albert Belle and Baines, Ripken came to the plate with two outs and Surhoff on second. Surhoff couldn’t score on Ripken’s high-chop infield single to third, but the hit brought Ripken within one of the milestone.

Maduro allowed a triple for the second consecutive inning when Torii Hunter opened the bottom of the fifth with a three-base hit. Hunter scored on a single by Todd Walker to tie the game again at four runs apiece. 

Southpaw Travis Miller replaced Bergman in the seventh. After Miller retired the leadoff hitter, Belle doubled and moved to third on a groundball to short. This brought Ripken to the plate with two outs and the go-ahead run on third. Playing the matchup game, Twins manager Tom Kelly brought in right-hander Héctor Carrasco to face the righty Ripken.

Carrasco’s first pitch was well above the strike zone. The ball bounced off catcher Matt LeCroy’s mitt and went to the backstop. Belle scored from third on the passed ball to put the Orioles ahead by one.

Ripken lined the next pitch over Carrasco’s head and in front of Hunter in center field for the 3,000th hit of his career. He was greeted by first-base coach Eddie Murray at the bag. Murray, Ripken’s teammate for nine seasons, had reached the historic milestone five years earlier in the same ballpark. He remarked, “Way to go. Welcome to the club.”7

The game paused as Ripken’s teammates and hitting coach Terry Crowley came out to congratulate him with handshakes all around as the crowd stood and cheered.8 Ripken walked over to the stands on the first-base side of the park and tossed the historic ball to his wife, Kelly.9

Surhoff added one more run to the Orioles total with a leadoff home run in the top of the ninth, making the score 6-4. Mike Trombley, who had spent the first eight seasons of his career in Minnesota before signing with Baltimore as a free agent in November 1999, closed out the Twins in the ninth for the save. The Orioles were off on a six-game winning streak.

Reflecting on his achievement after the game, Ripken said, “Reaching 3,000 hits is really symbolic of being productive and playing for a long time. I didn’t imagine it would be so tough to get those last nine hits. It was a phenomenal experience, and one that I’m really glad is over. It didn’t work out this time that I could actually do it in Baltimore, but I’m glad that my kids got to see it.”10

Ripken Jr. became the 24th player in major-league history to reach 3,000 hits and the third player in seven years to reach the milestone at the Metrodome.11 Ripken concluded his playing career at the end of the 2001 season. As of 2022, his 3,184 career hits were the 15th highest all-time.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to John Fredland and Kurt Blumenau for their insightful comments on the first draft of this article. The article was fact-checked by Thomas Brown and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for team, season, and player pages and logs and the box scores and play-by-plays for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN200004150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2000/B04150MIN2000.htm

Notes

1 Cal Ripken Sr. was a minor-league manager in the Baltimore system for 14 years while Ripken Jr. was growing up. Ripken Sr. managed the Baltimore Orioles in 1987, and was the first major-league manager to have two sons play on his team. He was fired in 1988 after the Orioles started the season with six consecutive losses, on their way to 21 straight losses before their first win.

2 All biographical information taken from Ripken’s SABR biography. Jimmy Keenan, “Cal Ripken Jr.,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/cal-ripken/ (last accessed November 14, 2022).

3 Tim Kurkjian, “Rip on a Tear,” Sports Illustrated, July 29, 1991: 24.

4 Ripken took 913 games to go from 2,000 to 3,000 hits. He reached the 3,000-hit plateau in his 2,800th game. Miguel Cabrera got to 3,000 hits in 2,600 games. Of the 33 players in the 3,000-hit club, they are the only two to reach the milestone in a round number of games.

5 Michael Knisley, “Knowing When to Say When,” The Sporting News, April 3, 2000: 36.

6 Koskie finished the season with four triples.

7 Arnie Stapleton, “Welcome to the Club,” The Sporting News, April 24, 2000: 62.

8 Crowley was Ripken’s Orioles teammate in 1981 and 1982; he was playing first base the day Ripken began his record consecutive games played streak on May 30, 1982. In addition to being the hitting coach when Ripken reached 3,000 hits, Crowley was also the hitting coach when Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor collected their 3,000th hits. Taken from Jim Souhan, “Crowley Is Linked to Ripken’s History,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 16, 2000: C14.

9 Action transcribed from the You Tube video “Cal Ripken Jr. Hit No. 3,000-April 15, 2000-vs. Minnesota Twins,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ4VPckphHQ (last accessed November 14, 2022).

10 Post-game interview transcribed from the You Tube video “2,000 MLB Highlights, April 15 (Cal Ripken 3,000th Hit),” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtYbHNtLL3o (last accessed December 2, 2022).

11 In addition to Murray and Ripken, Dave Winfield reached 3,000 hits at the Metrodome in 1993.