Stars who played: entire careers with one team: they include such notable performers as Brooks Robinson, Mike Schmidt, Ted Williams, Craig Biggio and Cal Ripken

Baseball Digest, August, 2008 by George Vass

IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN WHETHER OR not the 3,060 base hits Craig Biggio banged out during a 20-year major league career stretching from 1988 through 2007 assure him of first ballot election to the Hall of Fame when he's eligible a half decade from now.

It's indisputable however that Biggio, who retired the end of the 2007 season, already has entered another select company of elite players, including a goodly number of the game's all-time standouts, by spending all his days as a big leaguer with one and the same team.

What was widely celebrated as the most memorable achievement of Biggio's extended term with the Astros came on June 28, 2007, at Houston's Minute Maid Park. When he lined a single to center off Colorado Rockies right-hander Aaron Cook not even being thrown out at second trying to stretch hit No. 3,000 into a double could diminish the jubilation of reaching a historic milestone.

As fireworks lit up the ballpark, a counter in left-center field ticked off 3,000, and a huge banner with Biggio's portrait and the number 3,000 was unveiled to celebrate the memorable hit.

Making the accomplishment all he sweeter was that No. 3,000 was not only Biggio's third hit of the game, but that he rounded out the day with five, the last a 11th-inning single ahead of Carlos Lee's grand slam that gave the Astros an 8-5 victory. It was just the second five-hit game of Biggio's career.

"I couldn't have scripted it any better," said Biggio, who became the 27th player in history with 3,000 hits. "There are a lot of things that have happened over the past 30 years, but this is the best."

Among Biggio's other achievements as catcher-turned-second baseman with occasional stints in the outfield has been to place fifth all-time in doubles with 668, three more than George Brett. Only Tris Speaker (792), Pete Rose (740), Stan Musial (725) and Ty Cobb (724) had more two-base hits.

Biggio ranks second on the hit-by-pitch list with 285, the National League record, just two fewer than Hughie Jennings' major league mark. He finished 13th with 1,844 runs and his 3,060 hits rank him 20th all, time. Then there's his N.L. record of 53 leadoff home runs.

It all adds up to an exceptional career, but what deserves greater emphasis than it usually gets is that he did it all in the same uniform, that of the Astros.

Former Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell, who'll be forever linked to Biggio by the nickname "Killer B's" pinned on them by Houston fans, put the matter of a player "staying put" into perspective. He should know. Like Biggio, he spent his entire big league career playing for one team, the Astros. He hit 449 homers and produced a batting average of .297 from 1991 through 2005, a 15-season span.

"In this day and age, with players moving all around, it's hard for young fans to say 'That's my guy,'" said Bagwell. "The good part is that for 15 years we played together and they always knew (Nos.) 5 (Bagwell) and 7 (Biggio) were going to be there."

Bagwell was understandably reiterating the general impression that players scurry from team to team far more frequently than they did in the receding past, and consequently it's difficult for fans to become attached to their "heroes" because they don't stay in town very long. It's almost hail and farewell, as the gladiatorial games "fans" in Rome's ancient Coliseum used to chant.

Nevertheless, as the extended tenures of Biggio and Bagwell with the Astros suggest, even these days a player can start and complete a long and distinguished career without changing his allegiance to another team.

Sure, it's definitely a rare achievement, but then it always has been, a fact sometimes lost sight of by those who mistakenly believe that since the inception of free agency about three decades ago players are far less likely to stay put than in the days when the reserve clause "enslaved" them.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Not so! What has changed is that highly talented and coveted players can often choose which team they want to play for, something they had no control over in the past. In former days, management generally decided a player's destination by trading or selling him to whatever team they chose in a transaction they deemed the most beneficial to them.

No matter how skilled or celebrated, players always have moved from team to team since the game's earliest days. The Hall of Fame is crammed with itinerants. In fact four of the first five "immortals" sent to the shrine in the first election in 1937 had worn more than one big league uniform.

The only one of the original five who had spent his entire career with the same team was pitcher Walter Johnson. The other four premier inductees--Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth--all played for at least two teams. In fact, Speaker performed for four different clubs and Ruth clad his ample girth in two uniforms other than New York Yankees' pinstripes.

It's highly significant although all five of the first batch of Hall inductees were among the greatest stars of the early 20th Century, four were either forced to pack their bags or voluntarily chose to do so. It's equally notable that the election which put them in Cooperstown took place seven decades ago, almost a half century before free agency allegedly, in decisive fashion, transformed ballplayers into migratory workers--or mercenaries.