We had been waiting all day, all month, all winter for Miguel Cabrera to get his 3,000th hit. So, naturally and hilariously, the Yankees walked him intentionally. emmabaccellieri on what happened in Miggy’s milestone chase this afternoon:
It caps a circus of a series for the slugger. Cabrera came into this three-game stretch against the Yankees on Hit No. 2,995. The first game saw him single to center to reach 2,996. The third game saw the aforementioned intentional walk after a hitless day. And the second game—the game in which he skipped up to the threshold of history—saw him do this:
You do not need any numbers to appreciate that. All you need is “Miguel Cabrera legs out an infield single,” a phrase befitting another decade, a Proustian madeleine for Tigers fans. It did not feel like Hit No. 2,997 as much as it felt like something that could have been Hit No. 1,409, or Hit No. 738, or Hit No. 1. How glorious, how, to get to slip backward in time like this.
Yet in that game on Wednesday, for him, it was. Which suddenly made the rest of the night feel like it had to be inevitable: If the fabric of the game already feels a little warped, there’s nothing to lose in believing in magic, is there? If 39-year-old Miguel Cabrera gets a hit on his first plate appearance of the game like, hustling to first on a chopper, he’s getting as many hits as he needs that night. Isn’t he? For a few hours, it was easy to believe.
Time has stretched and slowed and opened up backward onto itself all week. It will have to do the same tomorrow. If this is about the long game—not about Hit No. 3,000 so much as the weight of Hits No. 1 to 2,999—Cabrera’s journey got a tiny bit longer on Thursday. But there was something magical to it.
Miguel Cabrera has tomorrow, and the day after, and as many days as he might need after that. What a gift.