Baseball's Green Jacket
Written by Ben Pogany
When it comes to sports milestones, there really is nothing quite like the 3,000 hit club. We don't have a 20,000 point club or a 100 touchdown club; in other sports, it's just numbers. In baseball, it's a rite of passage. But even within a sport obsessed with every stat from RBI's to VORP, the 3,000 hit club trumps them all. Sure, we have so called "clubs" for 500 home runs, 300 saves, going 30 and 30 and so on, but none carry quite the prestige and fanfare as hitting 3K. Entering the 3,000 hit club is like being given baseball's green jacket, an induction ceremony of sorts for baseball's truly elite batsmen. One can only imagine the 
20 living members meeting in some secret fortress once a year like the Stonecutters, tugging on the game's unseen strings for their personal amusement (As if Jim Joyce was acting alone...) Not hard to see why this is the one fraternity every little leaguer shoots for from the day they can pick up a bat. Sadly, as the next two prospective entrees can evince, some just don't know when to stop shooting....
20 living members meeting in some secret fortress once a year like the Stonecutters, tugging on the game's unseen strings for their personal amusement (As if Jim Joyce was acting alone...) Not hard to see why this is the one fraternity every little leaguer shoots for from the day they can pick up a bat. Sadly, as the next two prospective entrees can evince, some just don't know when to stop shooting....The Current Pledge Class
Ivan Rodriguez (age 39) ---2844 hits to date
Alex Rodriguez (age 35) ---2775 hits to date
Johnny Damon (age 37) ---2723 hits to date
Chipper Jones (age 39) ---2615 hits to date
Vladimir Guerrero (age 36) ---2590 hits to date
Ichiro Suzuki (age 37) ---2428 hits to date
Albert Pujols (age 31) ---2073 hits to date
