What Counts Most to Brewers’ Yount Isn’t Getting Hit No. 3,000

Robin Yount isn’t chasing 3,000 hits. To chase something, you have to have your eye on it.

Yount is approaching 3,000 hits, other people are doing the counting. He gets closer, and some time toward the end of the season he could enter one of baseball’s most select circles, a spot only 16 men have reached.

Yount would be content to let No. 3,000 slip by just as unobtrusively as most of the first 2,999, but you can be sure the hullaballoo that will surround the final dozen or so hits will not allow it.

Neither will Paul Molitor, a teammate for 15 of Yount’s 19 seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers.

“He doesn’t like to talk about his accomplishments,” Molitor said. “He’s not comfortable talking about his success, the things he’s been able to do.

“He’ll try to downplay it. I hope we don’t let him.”

Yount, still rangy and redheaded at 36, is an anomaly in a game in which many players can recite their statistics to the moment. That is all right for them. It is not part of Yount’s makeup.

“To be honest, it’s not a real concern of mine; it seems to be a lot bigger deal to everyone else,” said Yount, who enters the Brewers’ game against the Angels at Anaheim Stadium today with 2,883 hits. “It’s really not the thing that brings me to the ballpark every day. I come here to compete in the games; I enjoy the competition. It’s not important to me where my name ends up on a list.”

Andy Etchebarren, a former Brewers’ first base coach, remembers the day at Yankee Stadium in 1989 when Yount got his 2,500th hit. The game was stopped in recognition of the moment, only Yount didn’t recognize it.

“People were clapping,” Etchebarren said. “He had no idea why. I know people have a hard time believing that, but if you stood in the box and looked at his eyes, you could tell.”

The list Yount figures to join is a short one. The Baseball Encyclopedia is stretching toward 3,000 pages, but of the many men whose careers crowd its pages, only these have reached 3,000 hits: Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Carl Yastrzemski, Eddie Collins, Willie Mays, Nap Lajoie, Paul Waner, Cap Anson, Rod Carew, Lou Brock, Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente.

Carew, now a hitting instructor with the Angels, was the last one to reach 3,000, in 1985. Now he waits for Yount--and George Brett, who entered the season with 2,836 hits--to join him. He knows Yount well enough to predict his approach to the milestone.

“Robin probably didn’t say much,” Carew said. “It’s a great feeling to get that close to something only 14 or 15 guys have ever done.”

The moment, he suspects, will overtake Yount despite his indifference.

“I didn’t know how I’d react,” Carew said. “When it happened, when I got down to first, I was boiling with emotion. It didn’t show a lot, but it was in there.”

It was also the end of a countdown that became stressful.

“It felt like, it’s over, that’s it,” Carew said. “You don’t realize until you get it how much of a load you were feeling on your shoulders. You don’t feel it hanging over you until after you get it, then it’s like, oh, finally.”

Reaching 3,000 is a tribute to longevity, of course. Yount broke in as a shortstop in 1974. But it is more aptly termed a tribute to consistency at a very high level.

“Robin’s as humble as anyone, and Robin’s humbleness is of the utmost sincerity, but there has to be pride in doing something only 16 people have ever done,” Molitor said. “If he says, ‘Anyone would do it if they went up there enough,’ at least he got up enough. A lot of people would not have the mental and physical stamina.”

Molitor, who has had more than his share of injuries, knows that avoiding major injuries has been a factor for Yount. Yount moved from shortstop to the outfield in 1985 after shoulder surgery. Last year, kidney stones put him on the disabled list for only the second time of his career. He played in only 130 games, but still got 131 hits, which is nine more than he needed entering this season to reach 3,000.

“He’s been pretty fortunate, the (injuries) he’s had have been minimal,” Molitor said. “For the most part, he’s been able to play when other players wouldn’t, whether it was fluid in his knees or back spasms so bad he could barely walk till game time.”

The games keep Yount at it. More than anything, the possibility of reaching a second World Series keeps him at it. “That’s what drives him,” Molitor said.

“The game is as fun as how well we do,” Yount said. “I had a real good year in ’89. It was miserable. I didn’t enjoy it. We weren’t contending. It was disappointing.

“It would be a lot more fun to say, have a mediocre year and have the team go to the World Series and win it. That would be a lot more fun than to have a great year and be out of contention in the pennant race.”

The Brewers made it to the World Series in 1982. Yount batted .414 with six runs batted in in the Series, but St. Louis won in seven games.

“That still, through 18 years, is the highlight by far,” Yount said. “Nothing even compares. I’d like to experience that feeling one more time. Winning would be the ultimate feeling. Just playing in it, there’s something different about those games from any others. Obviously to win it would be better than just getting in. It’s very disappointing to come out on the short end.

He has considered, at times, trying to reach another World Series by latching on with another team after all these years--his entire career--with the Brewers.

“It’s not that easy,” he said. “There are free agents who switch around, trying to get to the World Series. But you can’t just say, ‘These guys are going to win.’ If it was that easy. . . .

“Two years ago, I was seriously thinking about going free agent, not because I wanted to leave Milwaukee, but merely for the reason I was not sure it was the best opportunity to get to experience the World Series again. The closer I got to doing that, a lot of other things got involved.”

He stayed, and now, he says, he always will.

“I’m sure I’ll stay in Milwaukee as long as it lasts,” he said.

Yount is the Brewers’ all-time leader in nearly every offensive category, and ranks among baseball’s elite in several.

Though he has won two MVP awards, the 3,000-hit mark will be the focal point of his career, at least in the eyes of others.

“It will probably be a hassle,” Yount said. “It’s not something I’m craving. It’s not my desire to be in the middle of a lot of reporters.

“That’s not where the satisfaction comes from. Maybe it will mean more when I’m done.”

If the Brewers, picked to finish somewhere around the middle of the division, could make it to the World Series and win, Yount says he would walk away.

“That would be the ultimate way to go out,” he said, his eyes alight. “Win the World Series and quit. That’s all.”

Quit, if he had a World Series ring and 2,999 hits?

“Be easy,” Yount said.

The Hit List

1. Pete Rose 4,256 2. Ty Cobb 4,191 3. Hank Aaron 3,771 4. Stan Musial 3,630 5. Tris Speaker 3,515 6. Honus Wagner 3,430 7. Carl Yastrzemski 3,419 8. Eddie Collins 3,309 9. Willie Mays 3,283 10. Nap Lajoie 3,252 11. Paul Waner 3,152 12. Cap Anson 3,081 13. Rod Carew 3,053 14. Lou Brock 3,023 15. Al Kaline 3,007 16. Roberto Clemente 3,000 17. Eddie Rice 2,987 18. Sam Crawford 2,964 19. Willie Keeler 2,955 20. Frank Robinson 2,943 21. Jake Beckley 2,930 Rogers Hornsby 2,930 23. Al Simmons 2,927 24. Zack Wheat 2,884 25. Robin Yount 2,883