Players With 3000 Hits and 500 Home Runs: The Complete List

3000 hits. 500 home runs. Certain numbers reflect a level of dominance in baseball that only a small handful of players are able to achieve. Fewer than 35 players have been able to rack up hits or slug home runs at a significant enough rate over their career to join either club. Fewer still have been able to join the even more elite club of players with 3000 hits and 500 home runs. These players are among the best of the best to ever step up the plate, combining elite contact and power skills to shine in their respective eras. Today we are going to run down the list of MLB players with 3000 hits and 500 home runs in their career.

Note: All the statistics and events referenced below can be found using the Sports Reference Stathead tool!

Hammerin’ Hank Aaron has the distinction of having both the most home runs and the most hits of any player to make this list. He also sits alone atop the leaderboards for both runs batted in and total bases, has the third most games played in his career, and the 7th most wins above replacement. No matter which way you cut it, Aaron is one of the best to ever swing a bat.

Aaron came by hit number 3000 in the top of the first inning on May 17th, 1970, knocking a single off of Cincinnati Reds starter Wayne Simpson to bring home the first run of the game. He would continue on to drop hit after hit for six more seasons afterwards, bringing his final career total to 3771. 

As for home runs, number 500 for Aaron would come two seasons prior in 1968. On July 14th, Aaron clubbed a home run off of San Francisco Giants starter Mike McCormick, knocking in three and breaking a 0-0 tie in the bottom of the third. Home runs would continue to come in spades for Aaron, who would eventually go on to break Babe Ruth’s long-standing career record and finish his career with 755.

Fun fact: in both cases, Felix Millan was on base ahead of Aaron, and scored a run in both instances!

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Miguel Cabrera is one of the best hitters of the 21st century, a player who manages to distinguish himself among a list of all-time greats by having the highest career batting average (.308) of all players with both 3000 hits and 500 home runs. Cabrera is still active as of the writing of this article so this may change, but Cabrera currently joins Aaron and Willie Mays as the only members of this prestigious club with a career batting average higher than .300.

Hit number 3000 came for Cabrera in the 2022 season when he rapped a single off of Colorado Rockies starter Antonio Senzetela in the bottom of the first inning of an April 23rd game. Not satisfied with just one, Cabrera would collect hits number 3001 and 3002 on the same day, with the third and final hit of the day coming in the second game of a double header. Miggy collected 101 hits on the season, putting his career total at 3088.

Home run number 500 left the yard on August 22nd, 2021, when Cabrera took Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Steven Matz deep to tie the game at one apiece. The home run helped wake up a Tigers offense that had only reached base five times prior to the sixth inning, when Cabrera reached this milestone, and the Tigers went on to win 5-3 to put a cap on his historic night.

Fun Fact: Cabrera clubbing number 500 while facing the Blue Jays was particularly noteworthy, as Toronto was the team he performed worst against! Relative to his own career, Cabrera had an OPS 46% lower than his usual while playing the Blue Jays.

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The Say Hey Kid did it all. He could run, field, throw, and he hit the ball as well and as hard as anyone to have ever played the game. With 156.1 career WAR, Mays sits in fifth place on the all-time leaderboard, higher than any other player with both 3000 hits and 500 home runs. Mays also has the distinction of having the most stolen bases of any player on the list, with 338.

For Mays, hit number 3000 came on July 18th of the 1970 season when he knocked a single to center field against Montreal Expos starter Mike Wegener. It was one of two hits in a commanding San Francisco Giants 10-1 win over Montreal, and one of 139 for Mays on the season, his highest total of his last five years. Mays would finish his career with 3293 hits.

Home run number 500 had come for Mays five seasons earlier, on September 13th, 1965 when he took Houston Astros pitcher Don Nottebart deep in the top of the fourth inning to tie the game at one run apiece. The historic moment was the middle game of three straight that Mays had homered, and his second home run against Nottebart in five days. He’d hit 160 more over the rest of his career, finishing with 660.

Fun fact: Nottebart likely wasn’t particularly happy to see Mays in this situation; among players with more than 40 plate appearances against the pitcher, Mays posted the fourth highest OPS at .990, high even for his own lofty standards.

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No player on the list of those with 3000 hits and 500 home runs lended their services to more teams than Steady Eddie. Murray, who earned his nickname by playing in a whopping 3026 games over his career, racked up playing time for the Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, and Anaheim Angels. He earned a Rookie of the Year award for the Orioles in 1977, was elected to eight All-Star Games, and twice finished second in Most Valuable Player voting.

Hit number 3000 came for Murray while he was playing in Cleveland against the Minnesota Twins. On June 30th, 1995, Murray took an 0-1 pitch from Twins pitcher Mike Trombley and sent it to right field for a single. It was one of 141 on the season, the last in which Murray would bat over .300, finishing 1995 with a .323 batting average. For his career, Murray retired with 3255.

Murray is the first player on this list for whom 3000 hits were easier to come by than 500 home runs. It was in the 1996 season that Murray crossed the latter threshold, while playing for his long-time team, the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles had swung a trade with Cleveland to bring Murray back, and on September 6th he made history in front of the home crowd, hitting homer number 500 off of Detroit Tigers pitcher Felipe Lira. Murray would only hit four more in his career, ending it with 504.

Fun Fact: Murray homered in this game, but so did another player who makes this list! Teammate Rafael Palmeiro was making his own climb up the charts, sending a pitch from Lira out of the park for his own career’s number 227.

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On a list of players with such distinguished careers, it can be hard for one to stand out from the crowd. Palmeiro managed to do it by finding a way to be the player on the list with the fewest strikeouts, with a career total of only 1348. In fact, Palmeiro only struck out over 100 times once in his career. He joins Aaron as the only two players on the list with more walks than strikeouts, with 1353 of the former.

It took Palmeiro until his last season to cross the milestone of 3000 hits off of his list, but he did it with more authority than anyone on the list ahead of him thus far. Palmeiro’s 3000th hit came on July 15th, 2005, when he sent a double into left field off of Seattle Mariners pitcher Joel Pineiro, bringing home a run and giving the Baltimore Orioles a 4-1 lead. Twenty more hits would fall for Palmeiro in 2005, putting him at 3020 when he ended his career.

Home run number 500 had already fallen for Palmeiro in the 2003 season. On May 11th, Palmeiro launched a three run home run off of Cleveland Indians starter Dave Elder, pushing a wide-open game even wider, giving the Texas Rangers a 16-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning. Home runs would keep coming for Palmeiro, who finished his career with 569.

Fun Fact: Almost one percent of Palmeiro’s career hits came against seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens!

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There’s a reason they called Albert Pujols “The Machine.” Pujols opened his career with ten straight seasons of hitting with a batting average higher than .300, more than 30 home runs, and more than 100 runs batted in. He won three National League Most Valuable Player awards in that time, finished in second twice more, and even brought home the Rookie of the Year award in his first season. Over his first eleven career seasons, Pujols posted a batting line of .328/.421/.617, good for an OPS of 1.037.

Hit number 3000 dropped for Pujols on May 4th, 2018, when he rapped a single to right field off of Seattle Mariners pitcher Mike Leake. It was the first of two hits for Pujols in the game, who would also bring home two runners with his second, helping lead the Los Angeles Angels to a 5-0 win over Seattle. Pujols would go on to rack up a few hundred more hits for good measure, finishing his career with 3384.

Meanwhile, Pujols becomes the first player on this list to hit home run number 499 and number 500 in the same game! On April 22nd, 2014, Pujols hit both home runs off of Washington Nationals starter Taylor Jordan. It was a big day at the plate for Pujols, who led the Los Angeles Angels to a 7-2 win with his two home runs and five runs batted in. Over the rest of his career he’d knock 203 more out of the park, becoming only the fourth player to hit 700 home runs in MLB history, ending his career with 703.

Fun Fact: The multi-home-run game was one of 65 in Pujols’ career, more than any other player on this list!

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A-Rod is the only player on this list who didn’t spend the majority of his career at first base or patrolling the outfield. Early in his career, Rodriguez played shortstop for the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers, before moving to third base while playing for the New York Yankees. Everywhere he went, Rodriguez dropped hits and knocked home runs in spades, averaging 181 hits and 40 home runs per season over the course of his career, earning himself three American League Most Valuable Player awards in the process.

Hit number 3000 for Rodriguez has the distinction of being the one on this list hit with the most authority – it came as a home run. It was the bottom of the first inning on June 19th, 2015, and Rodriguez took Detroit Tigers starter Justin Verlander deep to start the scoring, making it a 1-0 game in favor of the Yankees. This was home run number 667 for Rodriguez. For his career, A-Rod would finish with 3115 hits.

Home run number had come many years earlier, in the 2007 season. In the bottom of the first on August 4th, Rodriguez launched a three-run home run off of Kansas City Royals starter Kyle Davies, making it a 3-0 game. Rodriguez went on to hit 196 more, finishing his career with 696 home runs.

Fun Fact: First inning home runs were common for Rodriguez over the course of his career. He hit 122 of them – 11 more than the second place sixth inning!

In conclusion, the players who accumulated 3000 hits and 500 home runs are some of the best of the best in the history of the sport. They sit high atop the leaderboards in all sort of statistics, and their names are enshrined in the sport’s history.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 8th, 2023 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Statistical Achievements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.