moving past 2599

adrian beltre, who began his career with the dodgers in 1999 (here's his 1999 topps tek card for your enjoyment) 

rapped out  two hits on thursday night.  he had entered the evening tied for 79th all-time in hits with 2,599.  tied with steven patrick garvey.  now, garvey sits alone in 80th place, while beltre climbs the  list with 77th place in his sights (rabbit maranville and tim raines each have 2,605 hits).  meanwhile, i keep waiting for someone at elias to discover that garvey had one more hit that somehow didn't get recorded.  while he won't move up the leaderboard even if that were to be the case (and he may soon be passed by albert pujols and eventually miguel cabrera), i've always thought that 2,600 hits for garvey sounds a lot better than 2,599.

just for kicks, here's a 2001 topps tribute card of garvey that should have been.

when i first read about the inaugural issue of tribute and that it would be a set based on players whose numbers had been retired by their respective franchise, i thought for sure garvey would be included.  his number 6 was the first number retired by the padres, and only dave winfield had secured a similar spot in the friars' franchise lore.  no dice.  winfield was the only padre featured.  i used his card,

as well as that of robin roberts

to make the garvey, by the way.

congrats, adrian. i only wish you had got all of those hits as a dodger.