Day of milestones
Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 1:00 PM
A special night, one commanding attention as two milestones are reached in the same evening -- the first time baseball witnesses a player reach 500 home runs and another attain 3,000 hits on the same day.
Craig Biggio of the Astros is a throwback. In one uniform he reaches 3,000 hits -- an achievement I thought had been done for the last time after Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn did it. This milestone is an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame. Biggio has proven his versatility by moving from catcher to second base to centerfield to left field (briefly) then back to second base. At each position, he has been a contributor with four Gold Gloves in his second-base era.
Biggio could have left Houston. Colorado made a huge push for him in the late 1990s, offering him more money and his ex-teammate Darryl Kile was the Rockies' chief recruiter. At the last moment, Biggio stayed, wanting to bring a title to Houston alongside his wingman, Jeff Bagwell.
That dream almost happened two years ago, but it is the only thing that eludes Biggio in his gloried career.
Why is he so important? In this era when players move around so frequently a constant presence is so crucial to a city and a franchise. Biggio is Houston, involved heavily in local causes, remembered for his kneeling prayer after manager Larry Dierker was felled by an in-game seizure.
How fitting that Bagwell greeted him at home plate after hit No. 3,000 for they were the two that repaired the Astros' relations with fans unforgiving of the franchise allowing Nolan Ryan's escape to Arlington.
There are only 27 players in Biggio's club, one of the milestones relatively unaffected by BALCO talk. His numbers as a second baseman, both with bat and glove, are Hall-of -Fame caliber.
Frank Thomas reached his milestone 500 home runs 425 miles and several years removed from the city where he got his nickname: The Big Hurt. He wasn't the only weapon -- just the biggest -- when the White Sox were reborn in the early 1990s.
In Thomas there is a football body in a baseball uniform. We see a slugger with the patience and plate discipline of a leadoff hitter. We see an extraordinary hitter who seemed destined for multiple awards until injuries began to slow that march.
He missed the 2001 season, then 2004 and 2005 as well, by which time matters of business had become personal between Thomas and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. So Thomas was unceremoniously allowed to enter free agency, to pursue his quest for 500 home runs elsewhere.
Early last year, he looked the part of a goner in Oakland. But something kicked in around midseason and Thomas had a second half that had some talking of his winning a third MVP (he finished fourth in the voting).
What last season earned Thomas was a multi-year deal in Toronto, where his first half has resembled a year ago. What the Blue Jays need is a monster second half from him, and what Thomas needs is another career accomplishment.
At the end of his playing days his resume will glow with the consecutive MVP's, 500-plus homers and a possible .300 career average (.303 as of today). But there will also this number: 68 -- representing the games Thomas has played in the field THIS DECADE, none in the last three years. With no running ability, his game has been all bat. And the verdict is not totally in on how Hall-of-Fame voters regard the DH.
Biggio is a no-doubt Hall of Famer to me, but I am on the fence with Thomas, hoping he does something special in his last years playing the game to push me to his side when it comes to the Hall of Fame.
