September 16, 1996: Paul Molitor becomes first player to triple for his 3,000th hit

Hall of Famer Paul Molitor’s illustrious 21-year career included seven All-Star Game appearances and four Silver Slugger Awards. He was instrumental to the Milwaukee Brewers’ only American League pennant, in 1982, and the Toronto Blue Jays’ repeat World Series title, in 1993.1

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, and a product of the University of Minnesota, Molitor came up with the Brewers in 1978 at age 21, less than a year after leading the Golden Gophers to the College World Series. He had 15 productive years in Milwaukee. Molitor wanted to stay with the Brewers when he became a free agent after the 1992 season.2 But Milwaukee offered him a pay cut for 1993, so he signed a three-year, $13 million contract with the Blue Jays instead.3 After his time in Toronto, he wrapped up his career by returning home for three seasons with the Minnesota Twins.4

Molitor was an outstanding hitter with excellent speed. He batted .306 with 504 stolen bases during his career. Molitor reached 1,000 hits with four hits in his 835th career game, on July 2, 1985.

It took him 800 more games to get to 2,000 hits, a stretch that included a 39-game hitting streak in 1987.5 His 2,000th hit was a single off Bret Saberhagen of the Kansas City Royals on July 30, 1991.

Around that time, Molitor saw an article that gave the odds of current players reaching 3,000 hits. He said, “Robin [Yount, his teammate for 15 seasons in Milwaukee], was like 4-to-1 and George Brett was like 8-to-1. I think I was about 1,000-to-1, just because of injuries and I was older. So I quick called Las Vegas.” He was joking about betting on himself, but the anecdote shows how unlikely it was that he would reach the 3,000-hit milestone.6

Molitor finished 1995 with 2,789 hits, 211 shy of the 3,000-hit plateau. He signed as a free agent with the Twins after the season. This gave him the opportunity to reach 3,000 while playing for his hometown team.

The question was how long it would take. Replicating some of his best recent work – 216 hits in 1991, a majors-best 211 in 1993, even 155 in strike-shortened 1994 – would have Molitor on target for the milestone in 1996. His 142 hits in 130 games in 1995, however, made it seem more like a two-season job.

Utilized mostly as Minnesota’s designated hitter in 1996, the 39-year-old Molitor stroked 39 hits (tied for the most in the league) in April and finished that month with a .386 batting average. He stayed hot, reaching 2,904 career hits by the All-Star Game. With an impressive 47 hits in August, Molitor had 2,987 career safeties as the Twins started a nine-game homestand on September 6.

He needed two hits in the final game of the homestand, on September 15, to reach the milestone in front of his hometown fans. But the Seattle Mariners’ Salomón Torres, who entered with a 7.20 earned-run average in only six 1996 appearances, had terrific stuff that night and held the Twins to just two hits (neither by Molitor) during his complete-game shutout. Molitor would have to get his 3,000th hit on the road.

The Twins traveled to Kansas City on September 16. Both teams had struggled all season going into the Monday night game. The Royals were in last place, 20½ games behind the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central Division, with a 69-80 record. Minnesota, with a 74-75 record, was in third, 15½ games behind the Indians. A crowd of 16,843 came out to Kauffman Stadium with the chance to see history made.

The starting pitcher for the Twins was right-hander Brad Radke, who had a 10-14 record and a 4.36 earned-run average in 32 starts in his second major-league season. The Royals countered with rookie southpaw Jose Rosado. Rosado had been called up in June and was making his 14th start for Kansas City. He had a 6-5 record and an excellent 2.67 earned-run average.

Rosado struck out the first two batters he faced in the top of the first. This brought Molitor to the plate. He lined Rosado’s second pitch to right field for his 2,999th career hit. After advancing to second on a wild pitch, Molitor scored the first run of the game when Marty Cordova singled to left.

Radke retired the Royals in order in the bottom half of the inning, and the Twins boosted their lead to 3-0 in the second when Matt Walbeck singled and Pat Meares took Rosado deep for a two-run homer.

Twins second baseman Chuck Knoblauch followed with a milestone moment of his own, doubling for the 1,000th hit of his career. When Molitor congratulated him on the accomplishment, Knoblauch replied, “Now it’s your turn.”7

Radke pitched another clean inning in the home half of the second. Molitor’s first opportunity to reach the milestone came when he led off the third, but Rosado got him to fly out and went on to post his first scoreless inning of the game. Neither team advanced a runner past first base in the fourth.

Molitor came to the plate again with one out in the fifth. Falling behind in the count 0-and-1, he drove the third pitch from Rosado deep into right-center field.

Outfielders Rod Myers and Jon Nunnally converged, but neither could make the play, and the ball fell safely on Kaufmann Stadium’s outfield grass, bouncing to the edge of the warning track. Molitor dove headfirst into third base for the 3,000th hit of his career. It was Molitor’s 2,411st major-league game – just 776 games after his 2,000th hit.

The game paused as Molitor’s teammates poured out of the third-base dugout to congratulate him with hugs and high-fives as the crowd gave him a standing ovation and fireworks exploded overhead.8 When action resumed, the Twins stranded Molitor at third, and the score remained 3–0 in their favor.

The score didn’t change again until the bottom of the sixth. Radke, who had given up only one hit in the first five innings, lost his touch and the Royals hit him hard. Two doubles, then a home run by Keith Lockhart tied the score. Radke allowed three more hits and two more runs that inning; the Royals led 5–3 after six.

Molitor collected his 3,001st hit in the seventh, but the Twins failed to score. The Royals tacked on another run on a sacrifice fly in the bottom half to increase their lead to three runs.

In the top of the ninth, two consecutive singles and a groundout put runners on the corners with one out. A single by Rich Becker cut the Twins’ deficit to two and brought Molitor to the plate with men on first and third.

Molitor’s sacrifice fly got the Twins within one run, but the potential tying run was stranded at second when Cordova struck out. The Royals held on for a 6–5 win.

After the game, Molitor recalled, “I vividly remember making the turn around second and kicking it up. I got up and (third-base coach) Scott Ullger was there to congratulate me. Before I knew it, I was consumed with teammates.”9 He added, “I enjoyed the ride. It was a great experience. I kept thinking every day this was a great opportunity and something I should enjoy.”10

Molitor became the 21st player in major-league history with 3,000 hits and the first to reach the milestone with a triple.11 Two other members of the 3,000-Hit Club, Yount and Brett, were at the game to watch Molitor collect the historic hit.

Molitor joined Dave Winfield – who also played in the College World Series for Minnesota – as the second native of St. Paul to join the 3,000-hit club. This made them the first two players from the same hometown to join the club, and also made the University of Minnesota the only college to produce two players with 3,000 hits.12 Both players reached the milestone while playing for their hometown team, the Twins, and Molitor’s 3,000th hit came three years to the day after Winfield reached the plateau on September 16, 1993. When Molitor in 1998 collected his 500th steal, he became the fifth player to reach 3,000 hits and also have 500 stolen bases.13

Like other members of the 3,000-hit club, Molitor reached the milestone in the twilight of his career. But he didn’t play like most men his age, and what he accomplished during the 1996 campaign is unrivaled. Celebrating his 40th birthday on August 22 and finishing the season with a career-high 225 hits in 660 at-bats, Molitor became the oldest player to ever lead the league in hits.14

The only other player in the twentieth century with more than 200 hits in the year he turned 40 years old was Sam Rice in 1930.15 The only player with more than 600 at-bats over age 40 was Pete Rose in 1982. Molitor is the only member of the 3,000-hit club to get 200 hits during the season he collected his 3,000th hit.16

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to John Fredland and Gary Belleville for their input on the first draft of this story. The article was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author 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/KCA/KCA199609160.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1996/B09160KCA1996.htm

Notes

1 Molitor was selected as the Most Valuable Player in the 1993 World Series after batting .458 with 10 runs scored and 7 runs batted in

2 This Day in Baseball, “Paul Molitor Leaves the Milwaukee Brewers to Sign a Free Agent Contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, Thisdayinbaseball.com, accessed January 20, 2023, https://thisdayinbaseball.com/paul-molitor-leaves-the-milwaukee-brewers-to-sign-a-free-agent-contract-with-the-toronto-blue-jays/.

3 Kyle Lobner, “Today in Brewer History: So Long, Paul Molitor,” Brewcrewball.com, December 7, 2011, https://www.brewcrewball.com/2011/12/7/2616932/today-in-brewer-history-so-long-paul-molitor.

4 Molitor managed the Twins for four seasons after retiring as a player. He received AL Manager of the Year honors in 2017.

5 As of 2023, Molitor’s 1987 hitting streak was the longest since Pete Rose’s 44-game streak in 1978.

6 Associated Press, “Molitor Closing In on 3,000,” Chicago Daily Herald, September 15, 1996: 43.

7 Jim Souhan, “For Knoblauch, Only 2,000 to Go,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 17, 1996: 29.

8 Action transcribed from the following video. “Sept. 16, 1996, Molitor Gets Hit No. 3,000,” YouTube (Minnesota Twins), 1:26, accessed January 23, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZELJO1OJ6w.

9 Scott Miller, “Minnesota Twins,” The Sporting News, September 30, 1996: 27.

10 Associated Press, “Molitor Makes It to No. 3,000 in Typical Style,” Chicago Daily Herald, September 17, 1996: 161.

11 Ichiro Suzuki also joined the 3,000 Hit Club with a triple in 2016.

12 Jim Souhan, “St. Paul’s Finest Dives Into History,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 17, 1996: 23.

13 The first four were Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb,  Eddie Collins, and Lou Brock. After Molitor, Rickey Henderson and Ichiro Suzuki have reached both milestones.

14 Doug Skipper and Daniel R. Levitt, “Paul Molitor,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, accessed January 23, 2023, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/paul-molitor/. Molitor topped 200 hits four times in his career, in seasons when he turned age 26 (1982), 35 (1991), 37 (1993), and 40 (1996).

15 The author performed a query on Stathead.com, searching for seasons of 200 or more hits by players age 39 or older. The results can be found at https://stathead.com/tiny/f4aJZ.

16 Jim Souhan, “Numbers Do the Talking for Molitor Hall Bid,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 17, 1996: 29.