Adrián Beltré: His Life and Career

Back in 2018 I wrote a series of six posts on this blog to commemorate the six-month and the one-year anniversary of one of the greatest baseball moments I have ever seen: Adrián Beltré's 3,000th hit, very much what I did with Randy Johnson's 300th win back in 2009. One of these posts was about the life and career of Adrián Beltré. I put in a lot of effort in researching the piece and wound up with a 13,000-word behemoth of an article, and it only covered him up to the 2017 season. I went back over it years later and was impressed by my work, but since I don't have an editor I noticed a lot of typos and grammatical errors and even worse some factual errors. I was thinking about fixing some of those errors and reposting the piece, but then I got lazy and decided hey, why not do it for a really big day, such as after Adrián Beltré gets voted into the Hall of Fame.

Well, it's finally happened. Adrián Beltré appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot for the 2024 election, and has been voted in by an overwhelming 95.1% margin. (Well, by the time I'm writing this intro it's still a few days before the announcement, but he's been named on 175 out of 177 public ballots. He's going to have to fall to about half of the remaining votes in order to miss out on election.) Which means it's time to pull out and present to you the Life and Career of Adrián Beltré!

Major League Baseball Game Summaries - Games I've Attended

Today would have been the Rangers home opener and their first official game in Globe Life Field. However, with the coronavirus delaying the start of the baseball season for months, the opening of the brand new ballpark, I am faced with the awful truth that the calendar may turn to June or July and there will be no box scores to follow, no Excel spreadsheets to update, and most critically no games to attend. What is there to do fill the void that should be occupied by baseball? Then it hit me.

A little more than a year ago I was writing 300-word summaries for each of Randy Johnson’s Major League victories - 303 in the regular season and seven in the post-season - as part of the festivities for the tenth anniversary of his 300th win. It was mind-numbingly dull and extremely repetitive, and I didn’t want to ever do anything like that again. However, with the games delayed, I might as well write 300-word summaries of each of the 136 Major League Baseball games I’ve attended (minus the one exhibition game from before the 2010 season.) I’ve written about some of the games before in celebration of the 100-game milestone, but those sure as heck weren’t 300 words long, and then I’ve got another 36 to write about.

And yes, I’ve only been to 136 games. That’s still less than the number of games a team plays in a typical season. As much as I think about baseball and talk about baseball I don’t go to very many games. Furthermore, my memories involving the actual plays are limited, so I’ve mostly reconstructed the games through Baseball Reference’s Play by Plays, which I’ll link to.

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part VI: The Aftermath

The passage of time is an unrelenting thing. It has been almost 10 years since I sat in Nationals Park on a rainy day in Washington DC to watch Randy Johnson win his 300th game. And of course it has been a year since I sat in the brutally hot Texas sun in Arlington, Texas to watch Adrian Beltre get his 3,000th hit. And like what I did with the Randy Johnson milestone, I will take this opportunity to take a look back at what had happened in the past year, new perspectives of the events of July 30, 2017 now that a year has passed, and the future of the 3,000 hit milestone.



Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Letdown
Part V: The Moment
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part V: The Moment

Well here it is...July 30, 2017. The date of the biggest milestone of Adrian Beltre's career, and the moment we have been working up to over the past few days. Of course, unlike with Randy Johnson's 300th win which had to encompass the entire game, the hit is only a small moment of a much longer game. Would this include a play by play of the game up to and maybe after that point? You betcha. Would it have the stuff I did up to the start of the game? Of course. But clearly the 3,000th Hit will be the highlight.

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Letdown
Part V: The Moment (you are here)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part IV: The Letdown

We've gone through almost 28,000 words in the past three days and has gone through three different types of history. When we left off, Adrian Beltre is at 2,998 hits, and I had just gotten the day off for Saturday and was preparing to go watch him make a chance at history on July 29, 2017. Can he do it? Find out next, on...

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Letdown (you are here)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part III: The Set-Up

Welcome to Part III of my incredibly insane six-part series on a baseball milestone y'all probably don't care about. I've already submitted you to 20,000 words worth of stuff over the past two days, and we still have four more parts to go. After two days of mostly haphazardly-researched material, I am going to focus this time on my personal experiences. This time it's going to be about my personal history with the 3,000 hit club, my own personal memories on Adrian Beltre as well as his chase for 3,000 hits, up through July 28, 2017. Why specifically that date? Well you'll find out soon.

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up (you are here)
Part IV: The Letdown (January 29)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part II: The Player

Welcome to Part II of my crazy and insane project to document seeing one of the greatest milestones of my lifetime. Part I had already taken me more than 12 hours and a couple of freak-outs, and several sleepless nights. there are five more parts to go. This one will be about the life and career of Adrian Beltre, and I’m sure it will run on too long and make me miserable. But hey, Adrian Beltre!

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player (you are here)
Part III: The Set-up (January 28)
Part IV: The Letdown (January 29)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part I: The Introduction

Eight and a half years ago, on June 4, 2009, I had witnessed Randy Johnson winning his 300th game. It was a transformative moment for me, and every year on June 4, I celebrate the anniversary milestone as though it was an actual holiday. I also wrote over 25,000 words on the milestone in a six-part series posted on the six month and the one year anniversary of that 300th win. I put all that work in because I thought it would be my only opportunity to witness a key milestone moment, but as it turns out I was wrong. Almost six months ago I got a chance to watch another milestone moment, and it was (almost) as awesome as the Big Unit's 300th win. And just because I want to be fair, I figured I should give this milestone the same treatment. So sit back and enjoy (because I know none of you is going to read this so I'm sure you're sitting back and enjoying whatever you're doing), and prepare to learn more than you ever wanted to know about

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Like for the Randy Johnson's 300th win series, this one is going to be six parts

Part I: The Introduction (you are here)
Part II: The Player (January 27)
Part III: The Set-up (January 28)
Part IV: The Letdown (January 29)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)