2,602 hits through his age 33 season
540 hits after age 33 season
3,142 hits in his career
Robin Yount picked up his 2,500th hit on July 2, 1989 in a game in which he was 3-for-4 with five RBI. His Brewers beat the Yankees 10-2 in New York. This was back when the Brewers were in the American league and the Yankees were in the midst of a 13-year stretch of missing the playoffs. This is the longest playoff drought the Yankees have experienced since 1920. To give you an idea of the mediocrity of the 1989 Yankees, Yount’s hit was a ground ball single between third baseman Mike Pagliarulo and shortstop Wayne Tolleson. Catching that day was Bob Geren. The starting pitcher was Lance McCullers, but Yount got his 2,500th hit off of reliever Jimmy Jones.
As the announcers in the above clip pointed out, Yount was well on his way to a Hall of Fame career at this point. He had started his career as an 18-year-old shortstop in 1974 and was a mainstay in the Brewers’ lineup for the next 20 years. He won an MVP Award as a shortstop in 1982 when he hit .331/.379/.578 with 129 runs, 29 homers and 114 RBI. Three years later he shifted from shortstop to center field after going through two shoulder operations in the previous year-and-a-half.
The fielding metrics used at Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference do not rate Yount’s defense in center field kindly. He continued to hit well, but his value took a hit with the position switch. Still, he won another MVP award as a center fielder in 1989, the same year he had his 2,500th hit. Yount played another four seasons and added 540 more hits to his career total, but he wasn’t the player he had been. Age caught up to him. Through the age of 33, Yount hit .292/.345/.441. From age 34 on, he hit .257/.330/.381.