There are myriad storylines for Derek Jeter's final season with the Yankees and in the majors, and one of those was advanced on Sunday. Jeter singled to third base in the top of the third inning off of Blue Jays' starter Drew Hutchison to move him into a tie for eighth place on the all-time hits list, then bumped Paul Molitor behind him with another single off Hutchison in the very next inning:
Derek Jeter passes Paul Molitor for 8th on all-time hit list
Jeter climbed the first of what could be a few rungs on the all-time hits ladder in 2014.
Bob Levey
By Major League Baseball’s reckoning, Jeter is eighth thanks to this pair of singles. You could argue that he moved into ninth with these hits, however, if you want to include Cap Anson’s overall career work: Major League Baseball only counts Anson from 1876 on when he joined the National League and the Chicago White Stockings, cutting his 423 career hits in the National Association out from his 3,435 total. Of course, it makes total sense for MLB to only count the MLB hits, and Anson is also the only player in (or arguably in, whichever) the top-10 for whom this is even a concern.
Plus, Derek Jeter is a stand-up guy and Cap Anson a virulent racist who helped set baseball’s color line in the late 1800s and likely would have refused to take the same field as Jeter, so really, who’s going to miss Ole Cap from this list, anyway?
Next up on the all-time hit list is Carl Yastrzemski, with 3,419 career knocks. Jeter needs exactly 100 more to pass him, which isn’t impossible by any means, but is his first challenge on the list in his final season.
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