Al Kaline's 3,000th Hit

Al Kaline had two hits in four at-bats at Baltimore on September 24, 1974, the first of them the 3,000th of his career, and drove in a run in a 5–4 Detroit loss. There were nine days left in his twenty-second season, and it was his last.

He had signed with the Tigers out of high school in 1953 and never played for anyone else. At twenty he won a batting title, the youngest player ever to do it; he added ten Gold Gloves in right field and fifteen All-Star seasons, and in 1968 he finally got a World Series ring.

Kaline retired with 3,007 hits and 399 home runs, one short of a rounder number he was not interested in chasing. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1980 and spent decades afterwards in the Tigers organization.