What makes Miguel Cabrera one of the greatest hitters ever? Just ask the pitchers he faced
Detroit Tigers legend Miguel Cabrera entered Game 1 of Saturday's doubleheader having stepped into the batter's box 11,038 times across his 20-year MLB career. His first plate appearance Saturday resulted in his 3,000th career hit. He singled in the first inning against the Colorado Rockies at Comerica Park.
Cabrera is the 33rd player in MLB history to accomplish 3,000 hits and one of seven players with at least 500 home runs and 3,000 hits, joining Pujols, Rodriguez, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray and Rafael Palmeiro. There's an even rarer club within that one that's well within reach: Only Aaron, and Pujols also have 600 doubles, with Cabrera at 599.
It's just the latest milestone for the 39-year-old with a Hall of Fame résumé, and another symbol of his standing among both active major leaguers and the historic greats of the game.
CABRERA: Becomes seventh MLB player with 3,000 hits, 500 home runs
500 HOME RUNS: How Cabrera’s epic journey to history began in Venezuela
No one knows Cabrera's greatness better than the pitchers who have surrendered the lion's share of those hits. Cabrera completed the chase for 3,000 with at least one hit off of 997 pitchers, including a surplus of All-Stars and eight who have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The Detroit Free Press spoke with several as they recounted Cabrera's journey to 3,000 hits and shared insight into what has made him one of the most feared — and beloved — hitters of his generation.
'I knew he was going to put up big numbers'
The Florida Marlins signed Cabrera, from the La Pedrera neighborhood in Maracay, Venezuela, for a $1.8 million bonus in July 1999. Cabrera rapidly ascended through the minor leagues, peaking with 69 games with the Double-A Carolina Mudcats to open the 2003 season. Called up from the Mudcats to the majors, he made his MLB debut in June 2003 and never looked back. As a rookie, Cabrera hit an opposite-field home run off New York Yankees starter Roger Clemens in Game 4 of the World Series, and the Marlins won the Series in six games. The next year, he made his first All-Star Game, crushed 33 home runs and finished 22nd in National League MVP voting. Cabrera then posted back-to-back top-five MVP performances in 2005 and 2006.
Cabrera mashed for the Marlins until December 2007, when the Tigers acquired him in a trade. In exchange for Cabrera and left-hander Dontrelle Willis, the Tigers gave up a sextet of prospects: outfielder Cameron Maybin, left-hander Andrew Miller, catcher Mike Rabelo, and right-handers Eulogio De La Cruz, Dallas Trahern and Burke Badenhop. Cabrera is in his 15th season with the Tigers; Maybin and Miller were the last of the six prospects to retire, calling it quits during the 2021-22 offseason.
Tom Glavine, 47 plate appearances (2003-07): "I can't sit here and say I saw a young Miguel and thought, 'Man, this kid's going to get 3,000 hits and be a Hall of Famer.' But I certainly saw a kid that had a chance to be a really good hitter, certainly an All-Star-caliber-type player and the kind of guy that would anchor any lineup that he was in. That turned out to be the case."
Brett Myers, 47 plate appearances (2003-07): "I did not want to face him, trust me. He was one of those guys where you go, 'Oh boy.' I remember getting in trouble for throwing Barry Bonds a fastball with an open base. I thought Charlie Manuel was going to rip my head off. But I'm like, 'I'm not scared of that guy. I don't give a damn.' Facing Miggy, I had to have that confidence going in. At the same time, if I got lazy and didn't make a quality pitch to him, he was going to hurt me. There was no doubt about it."
Glavine: "You look at a lineup and try to identify guys that you don't want to let beat you, but at the same time, you look forward to those confrontations. The best brings out the best in the other best players. It's those individual interactions as much as it's a team game. That's fun. I know he's going to get me sometimes, and I'm going to get him sometimes. That's the cat and mouse game. I could see with him, he had a respect for the battle."
James Shields, 79 plate appearances (2006-18): "We kind of came up in a similar timeframe. When he was 20, he had a lot of accolades and the 2003 World Series. When I got called up, I didn't really care who I was facing. I had a lot of respect. I knew he was good. But I was really just looking forward to facing guys like him."
Cole Hamels, 28 plate appearances (2006-17): "When I made it to the big leagues and I saw him, he was probably one of the most intimidating human beings I ever saw. And he's only a year older than me. Being in big-league camp at 20 years old, and I go, 'This guy's only 21?' It blew my mind. I knew he was going to be really good. You just don't know how long of a period of time he's going to last. I knew he was going to put up big numbers. He was always going to hit .300. He was always going to have 25-plus homers."
Glavine: "You would ideally like to face him with two outs and nobody on, and if he hits a solo home run, so what? He's a great hitter. You knew he was going to get his hits. You just tried to keep him in the ballpark, keep him, if you could help it, from being the guy that beat you. We had some good battles. I don't know that there were too many secrets between him and me because we faced each other so much."
Hamels: "I thought I had him, and then he made me think twice. That was the constant. If I got him out, it was because I got him out early in the count and he pretty much got himself out. It wasn't because I did something magical."
Jeremy Guthrie, 65 plate appearances (2008-15): "You just knew you were competing against someone that was going to leave his mark on the game that would never be forgotten. This was not a guy that, when his career was over, was just going to be another guy you faced. You were going to look back and tell your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren, 'I played against Miguel Cabrera.' "
'Miggy didn't have a lot of holes'
If you can judge a hitter by his greatest nemeses, Cabrera gets high marks indeed. There's Glavine, who lasted 22 MLB seasons (1987-2008) and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. The longtime Atlanta Brave was a two-time NL Cy Young winner, 10-time All-Star, 1995 World Series champion and 1995 World Series MVP.
Shields, meanwhile — who has more of Cabrera's plate appearances than any other pitcher — was an All-Star and made 405 starts across his 13-year MLB career (2006-18), many in the AL Central with the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals. Guthrie, a former first-round draft pick, stuck around for 13 MLB seasons (2004-15, 2017), dueling the Tigers while with the Royals for five seasons during Cabrera's peak. Hamels, a four-time All-Star, pitched 15 years (2006-20) and mostly faced Cabrera during the slugger's early years, while the two were in the NL East with Philadelphia and Florida. Hamels led the Phillies to the 2008 World Series title while winning both NLCS MVP and World Series MVP.
Zack Greinke returned to the Royals in 2022 for a second stint in his 19th MLB season. The six-time All-Star — also a six-time Gold Glove winner and two-time Silver Slugger — won the American League Cy Young in 2009; that season he held Cabrera to two hits in 14 at-bats. Cabrera is a .346 hitter against him in all other seasons. Corey Kluber, still active as part of his 12-year career, is a two-time AL Cy Young winner and three-time All-Star. Chris Sale, also still active but on the 60-day injured list with the Boston Red Sox, has pitched 12 seasons in the big leagues, including seven in the AL Central with the White Sox. A seven-time All-Star, Sale won the 2018 World Series with the Red Sox. Trevor Bauer — who spent parts of seven seasons facing Cabrera while with Cleveland — was an All-Star in 2018, earned the 2020 NL Cy Young and has pitched 10 years.
Chris Sale, 66 plate appearances (2010-19): "In 2012, it was my first year as a starter. I got a pretty good taste of facing the best guy the most during the best time of his career. I always enjoyed playing against him, oddly enough, because I respect guys that respects themselves and respect the game. I knew when I was facing Miguel Cabrera, he was bringing 100% against me because he knew I was bringing 100% against him. I respected the battle."
Shields: "He's one of the best hitters in the game that I faced. I don't think anybody can really argue with that. He was such a disciplined hitter. His plate coverage was incredible. A lot of guys, they're really good hitters, but they can only cover half the plate, so if you execute your pitch, you can get him out because there are holes. Miggy didn't have a lot of holes. And when we did expose holes, he immediately knew from at-bat to at-bat how to fix that. He knows what he can't hit, but at the end of the day, he'll just foul it off and move onto the next one."
José Quintana, 55 plate appearances (2012-21): "I think that's the most important thing, how quickly he made adjustments during at-bats. That's the difference between him and other hitters, and I think that's the reason he's going to be a Hall of Famer. He has the numbers now."
Shields: "I tried to get ground balls as much as I possibly could, but he was so good at finding the holes. His approach at the plate was completely different every single at-bat. It was very difficult. He's one of the smartest hitters in the game. He studied pitchers like no other hitter. He knew what everybody was throwing. Between him and Manny Ramirez, those are the two top guys for me that knew pitchers better than anybody."
Trevor Bauer, 53 plate appearances (2014-20): "The hole in his swing is up-and-in fastballs. He just chooses not to swing at it a whole lot. When you throw up and in to a guy, if he's gonna really get the barrel to it, he has to speed up a little bit, which forfeits a lot of other pitches he may see in that at-bat. Off-speed pitches, he'll be out in front, for example. Miggy was different. He would hit off-speed pitches to the pull side, and he could hit fastballs opposite field. It allowed him to cover a lot of different speeds, but that left him vulnerable to fastballs up and in. The only problem is, he was elite at being able to touch the ball, foul it off and spoil the pitch."
Guthrie: "Sometimes you get those hitters, they'll never swing. Because he was so good, he was willing to chase and expand the zone, and he could do a lot of damage doing so. It became like a chess match. Like, 'OK, is he in swing mode? Can I throw it up and in to the point where he'll swing at a pitch that's about to hit his hands?' Sometimes he would. My other favorite was Vladimir Guerrero, and it was for a very similar reason. You just knew he was going to swing, so it was going to be an engaging at-bat, where the better person was going to win."
Zack Greinke, 42 plate appearances (2007-22): "The way I remember it is he was like the most complete hitter, but he did have a little issue up and away. He wouldn't swing and miss, but he would foul it off. He would hit a line-drive foul. I tried to do that a lot. It was tough to get him to swing and miss there, but you could get a couple strikes there. That was about the only spot he had an opening, and that was only if you threw hard. If you threw slower, it wouldn't matter."
Bauer: "I remember battles where I'd throw him fastballs up and in, and he fouled them all to the exact same spot. He wouldn't get any closer to being on time. He just looked at me and smiled, like, I can do this all day, when are you going to throw something else? Anytime I threw something else, he was looking for it. Just a tough at-bat all around."
Hamels: "I always wanted to keep the ball close to him — less damage with him not getting his hands out there and using his strength. That kind of helped me, but then again, he would find ways to get hits. There were points during games where I'd say, 'I'm just going to let him get a single and try to get the next guy out.' He's not going to be stealing second. He's not going first-to-third. I had to give into him and try to get the other guys out."
Corey Kluber, 73 plate appearances (2011-21): "I don't know if I ever really developed a good plan. He's one of those guys you can't really have a plan against, because he can combat whatever you're trying to do. I just tried to mix it up and keep him off balance. A lot of times, that didn't work."
Shields: "My changeup, it was a ball, but I had guys chasing it all the time. It would drop off and go in the dirt. They would think it's a strike, and they would swing at it. He was so disciplined, as soon as I threw it out of my hand, he knew it. He recognized it and wouldn't swing until I got to my other pitch. Next thing you know, I'm 2-0 count, 3-0 count, 3-1, 2-0, 2-1, whatever, behind in the count. And then I'd have to bring it."
Sale: "When he locks it in, when he's going, there's nothing anyone can do. You can throw the perfect pitch, he'll get to it. He just had days where he didn't get out. It didn't matter who was out there. Take any pitcher in their prime on their best day, Miggy's winning that battle."
Guthrie: "When you're at the top, everyone gives you their best effort. Let that simmer in your mind. Think about that for a minute. He literally spent his entire career, from age 22 on, getting everyone's best bullet. He was in the heart of the lineup. He was the guy that could beat you, and in some circumstances, he was the only guy that could beat you, and he still produced the same numbers he produced as that guy."
Glavine: "Those guys that have the ability to hit for average and power, they're able to do that because they don't have a lot of holes. When you do make mistakes, they take you deep. Miguel certainly was in that category, and that's why he's approaching the Hall of Fame."
Michael Pineda, 33 plate appearances (2011-21): "I tried not to repeat the same pitches, because he is so smart. I wanted to show my three pitches, but I didn't want to repeat. Sometimes he got a base hit, sometimes he got a double, sometimes I struck him out. We enjoyed the moment."
'Hundreds and thousands of players ... felt like he was their friend'
Cabrera hit .380 (27-for-71) with four home runs, seven walks and 12 strikeouts in 79 plate appearances against Shields. He hit .362 (25-for-69) with six homers, four walks and 15 strikeouts in 73 plate appearances against Kluber. He hit .291 (16-for-55) with four homers, 11 walks and 18 strikeouts in 66 plate appearances against Sale. And he hit .328 (19-for-58) with four homers, six walks and eight strikeouts in 65 plate appearances against Guthrie. He has faced those four pitchers more than anyone else. Cabrera also hit .340 (16-for-47) vs. Quintana, .286 (12-for-42) vs. Bauer, .262 (11-for-42) vs. Myers, .300 (12-for-40) vs. Glavine, .325 (13-for-40) vs. Greinke, .367 (11-for-30) vs. Pineda and .579 (11-for-19) vs. Hamels.
Even with that dominance at the plate, opposing pitches from around the league have spent two decades palling around with him — when they didn't have to face him.
Sale: "It doesn't matter if he's 0-for-4 with four punchies or 4-for-4 with four homers, or winning the game 15-0 or losing the game 15-0, he was always having so much fun. It looked like he was playing summer baseball in high school."
Glavine: "Sometimes where maybe I got him out, maybe I struck him out on a pitch that either he got fooled by or he knew was coming and still missed, he would look at you and give you that grin. I can promise you there were times where the reverse was true. When you get those, those are fun."
Guthrie: "I don't think I ever got one of those. That's my biggest regret in my career. I never got the look."
Kluber: "We developed a little bit of a relationship in that regard."
Hamels: "I was able to get him out a few times, and he would look at me like, Oh, you got me. I enjoyed it. It can be very exhausting during the season, and there's just those points where you feel free and start to feel like a kid again. That happened in those moments when you would play against him. In those moments, you were back to Backyard Baseball or Little League."
Pineda: "Some guys take the game so serious. OK, that's your personality, I'm fine. When I see guys like Miggy, they make me happy. I say, 'Wow, I want to stay here forever. I know it's impossible, but I want to stay here forever.' He enjoyed the moment. The numbers are important, but the personality he has, everybody loves him. Everybody loves Miggy. Everybody loves facing him, because they want to enjoy the moment."
Shields: "I never wanted to let him beat me. I think he respected how competitive I was, and he knew how much I wanted to get him out, and I knew how much he wanted to bang off me. For me and him specifically, we were both competitive. But we also liked to have fun playing the game. That's one of the things I really love about Miggy. He is super-competitive. He is one of the best in the game. But he also really enjoyed the moment playing the game. I always loved that."
Sale: "As soon as the pitch was coming — boom, switch is on, lock it in. After whatever intense moment was happening, he's done with it and back to clowning around. Shoot, if you throw a nasty pitch and he swings through it, he'll give you a head nod. That switch for him was incredible."
Quintana: "The first time I faced him, I got two strikeouts against him and won that game. The day after he was playing third (base), he kept looking at me in the dugout. He said to me, 'Hey, really good job yesterday. Really good pitches.' That was my first year in the big leagues. It was special to get respect from him. It gave me confidence."
Myers: "I enjoyed watching him to do that. The game has changed a lot. When I was coming up, it was just coming out of that tough guy era. I modeled my game after the tough guys: Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens. That's the era I grew up learning the game. To see him having fun out there, you can point your kids in that direction."
Bauer: "It happened to my buddy Mike Clevenger. Clev's on the mound; Miggy's coming up next. He looks over at our dugout from the on-deck circle, and he signals: second pitch, changeup, home run, right-center. He comes up, ball one. Clev throws a second-pitch changeup, and he homers to left-center. He's rounding the bases, and he's shrugging, looking at our dugout like, Ah, I didn't quite get it right. I got the second pitch, I got the changeup, I got the homer, but I hit it to left field instead of right."
Shields: "I'm playing for KC. I threw a two-seam fastball, probably about 92 mph. It was one of the best two-seamers that I ever threw. It was about a foot and a half inside, off the plate, in the batter's box. He literally jumped out of the way, swung and hit the back wall of the (Royals) Hall of Fame building in left field in K.C. There's really no human beings that could potentially do that. It didn't even matter what you threw him. He was such a good hitter."
Sale: "There was an instance where I was told to walk him intentionally, and I almost came up out of my cleats. The game was in Chicago. They wanted me to walk him to get to Prince Fielder, and I told my pitching coach, 'If you ever have me intentionally walk somebody again, I'm walking off the mound.' I hated it. I knew he knew. He looked at me like, You little wuss. I felt the same way. I was like, 'Man, this is a moment.' I always loved facing him. That's what we're here for — the big matchups."
Bauer: "When I'd beat him with a pitch, he would nod and smile. We would shift him sometimes to the pull side, and then he would hit a fastball up and in, and it may or may not make it to the outfield grass, but he just kind of bunted the other way. He literally would point at the ball and laugh at it when he was running down the line like, Haha, that's going to be a hit. Fun all-around playing against him."
Guthrie: "You're going to have hundreds and thousands of players be able to tell a story about how they played with or against Miguel Cabrera, and they felt like he was their friend, like he was someone that was willing to teach them in certain moments, encourage them in other moments and make the smile in other moments. We can run off a list of many Hall of Fame players that probably never gave anyone the time of day and were very focused on their craft. No one's going to have those stories about other guys like they will about Miguel Cabrera. His character and personality create even more of an appreciation for who he is and what he's accomplished."
Kluber: "But I think his legacy is what it is, despite his personality."
'It elevated his legacy'
Leading up to the 2012 season, Cabrera had finished in the top five in MVP voting five times, including runner-up in 2010. But in 2012, he went on a tear, winning the first Triple Crown since 1967 (Carl Yastrzemski) by hitting an MLB-best .330 with 44 home runs and an AL-best 139 RBIs. Cabrera won the 2012 AL MVP, then went back-to-back, securing the 2013 MVP. That year, he hit .348 with 44 homers and 137 RBIs. His totals for both seasons: .338 with 88 home runs, 276 RBIs, 156 walks and 192 strikeouts in 309 games. No player since has won consecutive MVP awards.
Guthrie: "One of the greatest memories I have in my career was watching him take a curtain call at Kauffman Stadium when he secured the Triple Crown. It was so spectacular to see him do it, and our fans recognized that. Every one of our players was on the railing, applauding and recognizing greatness. You were recognizing a single season at that moment, but in reality, with Miguel, you were recognizing a career that had already solidified himself as one of the greatest, and that was 10 years ago. You already knew he was a Hall of Fame player, almost at that moment."
Shields: "Any player that tells you they weren't following it, they are lying. Everyone was following it. It's a moment in history. I was pulling for him. I don't think there's one baseball guy that really wasn't pulling for him."
Sale: "I found myself pulling for him because I have respect for him. I have respect for him as a ballplayer, as a competitor. When I'm facing him, I want him to suck. But I respect who he is, what he does and how he does it enough to know that this is historic, he's earned it, he deserves it, and I'd love to see him get it. That type of thing. Just not against me."
Quintana: "We were waiting for when he started to get cold. But he was always hot that year. Those were really tough at-bats, especially when you're going to face Victor Martinez after him. We didn't have room to make mistakes. As a Latin guy, he's the best hitter I have ever seen."
Kluber: "It's cool to see guys accomplish historical things in hindsight. In the heat of the moment, competing against him, obviously you're not pulling for him. But whenever a season like that is over, and you can say you witnessed a part of him making history like that — it's a great accomplishment."
Glavine: "I can't say that after I retired from baseball I watched it intently, or anything like that. But you certainly watch enough, you're aware of what's going on. He made it apparent early on that he was a good player and had a chance to be a great player. When you started to see him grow into being that great player, it was fun to watch from the standpoint of having faced him as a young kid and seeing the progression he's making and the mark he's leaving on the game and his career. Those things are fun to watch. You appreciate seeing that happen because you had the ability to compete against him, to have some of those interactions on a personal level. It's fun being in on the ground floor, so to speak, and seeing what it becomes."
Shields: "Those are probably one of the greatest two years, statistic-wise for a hitter, in the history of the game. You couldn't get him out. I mean, he was so locked in, it was ridiculous. You knew he was going to get on. It was just a matter of: How much damage is he gonna cause? Every time I got him out, I said, 'All right, I got eight more hitters until I have to face him again.'"
Sale: "If you have nine or 10 years in this game, you're very well-respected. You've been around for a while, but you still haven't accumulated enough for greatness. That's the separation. Someone can be great for a time, but what is it to be great all the time? That's him."
Shields: "I think it just elevated his legacy. For me, Miguel Cabrera is a Hall of Famer no matter what. If he doesn't get that Triple Crown, he's a Hall of Famer. But for me, I think it cements him as one of the greatest hitters of all time."
Sale: "Let's say someone gets called up this year, and they spend a full year in the big leagues. They hit .450. They hit 75 home runs. And they drive in 200 RBIs. He's not going in the Hall of Fame, but he's done everything no one's ever done. If he never plays another day of baseball, he was great once, but he's not great. Miggy has been consistent. You respect it."
Kluber: "I think he's still a very dangerous hitter. He's still a guy that impacts other guys in their lineup. The guys that have experience facing him, I would imagine nobody's any more comfortable. The same presence is still there."
Hamels: "You want him to be able to win another World Series. He did it so young, he probably didn't know what he was doing. When you win these personal awards, you look at Miguel and know he would like to do something as a team and he would like to win that championship because that's almost more fulfilling. But at the same time, the guy's a Hall of Famer. He'll forever be remembered as one of the best players to play the game."
'Everybody is going to remember his career'
In August 2021, Cabrera became the 28th player in MLB history to reach 500 home runs. Seven months later, he became the 33rd player to achieve 3,000 hits. Seven players have accomplished both milestones: Cabrera, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez. Only two of those players — Aaron and Pujols — also boast 600 doubles. Cabrera has 599 doubles, to go with the highest batting average of the three: .310 for his 2,600-game career.
Guthrie: "I would consider his Hall of Fame résumé like Ben Stiller's portfolio: 'Strong... to quite strong.' Unless everyone's asleep that day, I have no doubt whatsoever he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. From my perspective, I don't think you can find a more lethal and consistent right-handed hitter in our generation. What does that mean? The last 30 years. I put him right at the top of that list. He's one of the top hitters of the last 30-40 years."
Glavine: "If I had a runner on second base in a tie game, I didn't want to see Tony Gwynn. That is probably my standard answer there. Now that I think about it, I would say Miguel is 100% in the top five in terms of right-handed hitters that I faced. I say that with all due respect because I'd have to think about who the other four guys would be in the same discussion."
Quintana: "He's one of the best hitters I've ever faced. He's been doing this for 20 years. That's special. You don't see that around the game. It's tough. He got a lot of injuries and kept fighting. It's amazing. He's one of those guys every hitter wants to follow. Everybody is going to remember his career."
Myers: "If you can play this long and adapt, you're one of the top hitters in the game. He's a generational player that will go down as one of the best right-handed hitters in the game, bar none. Now, the game has been around a long time, too, so you can always argue about that. But in my time of playing, and watching what he's still doing, he's definitely one of the best right-handed hitters in my generation with us being the close to the same age."
Greinke: "I played against him in his prime a lot of the times I faced him. He was the most complete right-handed hitter I've faced. People that you could compare to him, I didn't face them as consistently in their prime. I'm not saying he's better, but when I faced him, he was the best."
Hamels: "I put the three toughest right-handed hitters together for me. It's Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera. They're all in the same book. All three are going to be in the Hall of Fame. They all have records. They're going to be remembered in the game of baseball for all eternity."
Pineda: "I've faced Pujols a couple times, but I've faced Miggy more. Those are unbelievable hitters, both Hall of Famers. The personality, with Miggy, it's a little more fun than Pujols. Pujols is a little more of a quiet guy, but Pujols is a great guy, too. But Miggy laughs a little more. It's two Hall of Famers right there."
Kluber: "I think he's one of the best hitters of our generation. It's a pretty easy argument to make that he's one of the top few hitters of this generation. More than anything, I'd probably look at it as a tremendous challenge facing him."
Bauer: "I'm a huge fan of greatness. I like watching people like Tom Brady, like Tiger Woods — the best that there is in the world doing things that no one else can do. I really love watching that type of stuff. Miguel definitely falls in that category. I respect the hell out of him as a player."
Shields: "He's one of the greatest hitters of all time. I've been very, very fortunate to play in the era that I played in. There's a bunch of guys, like him and Jeter, that are going to be remembered forever."
Sale: "He's as good as anybody I've ever faced, there's no doubt. What he did for those years was something like I've never seen before. Strictly hitting — bat-to-ball, average, power — if he's not the best, I'm forgetting who it was. Put it that way. ... I'd like to see him do it left-handed now."
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.