Pito Abreu reached one thousand hits

August 31, 2019

The Cuban star starter, native of Cienfuegos, José Dariel Abreu connected a single hit last Saturday but it was no ordinary hit — it was the undisputed number one thousand in his six-year career in the best baseball in the world: the MLB.

Abreu thus became the 52nd player to achieve such a feat in his first six major league seasons. The Cienfuegos native needed only 870 games and 3424 official at-bats, with a batting average of .292; during this stretch he also connected 174 home runs.

As for the franchise records, the Chicago White Sox, only fellow first baseman Earl Sheely (1921-1926) reached one thousand in just six seasons, although another Cuban also came close. This is Alexei Ramírez who accumulated 957 hits.

The statistics of Cubans who have reached this mark is equally small; the '79' of Mal Tiempo is barely the eighteenth in all of history. The list is headed by Rafael Palmeiro (3020), Tony Pérez (2732), Bert Campaneris (2249) and Tony Taylor (2007).

That said, in all the major leagues, since 1881, more than 1300 batters have surpassed the one thousand hit mark.

By the way, the youngest to achieve it was Ty Cobb, who at that time was 24 years and 145 days old; but no one reached the aforementioned figure faster than Chuck Klein, who needed only 683 games to accomplish it.

The greatest hitters of the ball in the MLB are Pete Rose, who recorded 4256, and Ty Cobb with 4191. Besides them, thirty players completed three thousand hits, and another 252 surpassed two thousand.