July 18, 1897: The Chicago Colts beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-3 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. Adrian Constantine Anson, a.k.a. "Cap" or "Pop," the 45-year-old 1st baseman and manager of the Chicago team, collects his 3,000th career hit, becoming the 1st player ever to do so.
Or… does he? It depends. If you count walks as hits, as the National League did in 1887, and only in that season, then, yes, this was the day he "founded" what we now call the 3,000 Hit Club. This is how Major League Baseball, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Elias Sports Bureau have chosen to officially count Anson's statistics.
If you count statistics from the National Association from 1871 to 1875, then he'd already done it 4 years earlier. Either way, he was the 1st player to get 3,000 hits in the major leagues. But if you accept that those 60 walks from 1887 weren't hits, and you also don't count the NA, then he ended his career at the end of this season, finishing 5 hits short of 3,000.
If, like the authoritative sources above, you accept this date as correct, then the milestone hit was a single off George Blackburn of the Baltimore Orioles, the National League version that were contracted out of existence after the 1899 season. Blackburn was signed by the Orioles that month, and was released before the month was out, never to appear in the major leagues again.
In contrast, Anson played 27 years, and is still generally regarded as the greatest player of the 19th Century: He batted .334 for his career, and his NA-counted total of 3,435 hits included 582 doubles, 142 triples, and 97 home runs, a good if not great total by the standards of the time. He led the NL in batting average 4 times, and in RBIs 8 times. He had 8 seasons of at least 100 RBIs, oddly leading the League in only 4 of those seasons. His OPS+ was 142, meaning he was 42 percent better at producing runs than the average player of his time, so he wasn't just feasting on a bad era of pitching.
He won Pennants as a player with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1871, the 1st season of the NA; and in 1876, the 1st year of the NL, with the team then known as the Chicago White Stockings. As player and manager, he led them to the NL Pennant in 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885 and 1886; finishing 2nd in 1883, 1888, 1890 and 1891. He died in 1922, before there was a Baseball Hall of Fame. He was elected to the Hall in 1939. Had there been an All-Century Team in the 19th Century, he would have been elected to it.
Anson was a great player, but a horrible person. It's not just that he was partly responsible for baseball's "color barrier" that began in 1887, it's also that he is now known to have bet on his own team to win, which would, under modern rules, have gotten him banned from baseball for life, just as happened to Pete Rose.
In 1898, without Anson either playing or managing, the Chicago team, because "they missed their Pop," was nicknamed the Orphans. This was dumb, and in 1903, they took the name by which they have been known ever since: The Chicago Cubs.
As of July 18, 2022, there are 33 members of the 3,000 Hit Club. Anson was joined by Honus Wagner and Nap Lajoie in 1914, Ty Cobb in 1921, Tris Speaker and Eddie Collins in 1925, Paul Waner in 1942, Stan Musial in 1958, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays in 1970, Roberto Clemente in 1972, Al Kaline in 1974, Pete Rose in 1978, Lou Brock and Carl Yastrzemski in 1979, Rod Carew in 1985, Robin Yount and George Brett in 1992, Dave Winfield in 1993, Eddie Murray in 1995, Paul Molitor in 1996, Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs on back-to-back days in 1999, Cal Ripken Jr. in 2000, Rickey Henderson in 2001, Rafael Palmeiro in 2005, Craig Biggio in 2007, Derek Jeter in 2011, Alex Rodriguez in 2015, Ichiro Suzuki in 2016, Adrián Beltré in 2017, Albert Pujols in 2018, and Miguel Cabrera in 2022.
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July 18, 1897 was a Sunday. In addition to Orioles at Colts, these 3 games were played in the NL:
* The Cleveland Spiders beat the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, 8-1 at League Park in Cleveland.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators, 4-3 at League Park in Cincinnati.
* The Louisville Colonels beat the St. Louis Browns, 10-7 at Eclipse Park in Louisville. Making his major league debut in this game, as the Colonels' shortstop, was John "Honus" Wagner.
* And the New York Giants, the Boston Beaneaters, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates were not scheduled, partly because holding professional sporting events on Sundays was still illegal in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the Orioles, the Senators, the Spiders and the Colonels were all dropped from the NL after the 1899 season. In 1900, the Browns became the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1911, the Bridegrooms, who had also been the Superbas in the interim, became the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1912, the Beaneaters, who had also been the Rustlers and the Doves in the interim, became the Boston Braves.
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