Real Life "Mr. 3000"

The premise is a solid one: A ballplayer who retired abruptly upon reaching the hallowed 3,000 hit mark returns to the big leagues at age 47 after a clerical error reveals he really only hit 2,997. Unfortunately, the execution was terrible. Bernie Mac plays the same exaggerated role he does in all of his movies, and nothing about the baseball action is believable. But Mac's character, Stan Ross, shares a fate with a number of real life baseball players whose numbers fall just short. Like Ross, the following guys have had borderline hall of fame careers but will likely fall short due to statistical shortcomings in a category...

Harold Baines played in All-Star Games almost 15 years apart from one another. Six AS appearances and 22 seasons total put him in pretty rare territory to begin with. Factor in his 384 HRs and career .289 BA and you'd have to assume he's already a borderline Hall of Famer. And he might be... if he had another 134 hits. Aside from Pete Rose (Banned from Baseball) and Rafael Palmeiro (Steroid user), every eligible player (retired for 5 yrs) higher than him on the career hit list is in the HOF. His 2,866 hits rank 41st all time and only one other player in the top 50 is absent from Cooperstown. What kind of players has Baines out-hit? Ted Williams, Jimmy Foxx, Reggie Jackson, and Richie Ashburn to name a few... Would 3,000 hits get him in the Hall of Fame? Sure, if he bought a ticket... but considering his 162 game average of 164 Hits a year, one more average season would have put him at 23rd all time. He retired at the age of 42...You have to assume that he's had his Mr. 3000 moment at least once...

 

By all accounts, Kenny Lofton was about as abrasive of a player as they come; not unlike the protagonist in Mr. 3000. Still, his speed and defensive prowess made him an employable ballplayer into his 40s. Lofton brought home 4 Gold Gloves and made 6 All Star game appearances. His defensive WAR places him within the Top 50 of all players for his career and his 622 stolen bases rank 15th all time. 8 of the 14 guys ahead of him are in the HOF. And while a lot of his other numbers fall a bit short, his career batting average sits on the brink of greatness at .299. Drawing the number out another decimal point, if Lofton were to latch on to another major league team at age 43 and go 7 for his first 7, he would eclipse the .300 mark. That kind of hit rate is near impossible, but then again if anyone could do the impossible it would probably be Kenny Lofton.

But the master of all Mr. 3000 moments has to go to Fred McGriff. The Crime Dog had an amazing career during the steroid riddled 90s. And to the best of my knowledge, not once has his name been associated with any of the usual suspects. McGriff led the league in HRs twice in his career, and after a few down years in the late 90s, rejuvenated his career in the early 2000s. After a 30 HR campaign in 2002 that left him just 22 HRs shy of the coveted 500 mark, injuries killed his 2003 and 2004 seasons as he hit only 15 more. Still, sitting just 7 dingers shy of the 500 HR mark, NO ONE offered McGriff a deal in Spring Training of 2005. A reluctant McGriff retired that year at age 41. As he now sits at the same age 47 as Bernie Mac's character in Mr. 3000, you have to assume that those final 7 HRs haunt him daily. The real shame in all of this... guys with half of his talent keep finding work in this league. Matt Stairs has played off the bench for all of his 40s and has more than 7 HRs in those years. Admitted steroid user Jason Giambi has prolonged his all but dead career with Colorado. But the mild mannered, and by all accounts, good team player Fred McGriff didn't receive a single job offer when he was on the cusp of greatness. Every qualified, non-steroid related player with 500 HRs has his plaque on the wall in Cooperstown. Most analysts believe that the 500 mark is about as sure of a thing as there is. But McGriff, who ranks 26th all time, received only 17.9% of the Hall of Fame vote for 2011. It's a shame, really. Seven more bombs, and instead of seeing McGriff in Tom Emanski Baseball commercials, we could see his face forever shaped in bronze in Cooperstown.