Paul Molitor must have been desperate to get 3,000 hits. He was 39 for the 1996 season and had a career total of 2,789 hits, 211 to go. He got 225 hits to make it by 14. I wonder if the Twins staff had given a thought that a 39-year-old would have over 200 hits and they would have to come up with something for 3,000. I wonder if that was the most hit for someone getting his 3,000 hit that season.
In his hall of fame acceptance speech Molitor mentioned that Harmon Killebrew was a hero of his when he was a kid. He ended up only three spots behind his hero in this evaluation. He would be ahead of him in others.
Molitor was more of a DH but I didn’t want to rate DH as a position. Molitor wasn’t a bad fielder. However, he kept getting hurt in the field, so he became a DH. That is why he had so many good hitting years in his 30s.
Paul Molitor was great in the post season. He had an Ops of over 1.000 which is outstanding. He was in the post season only three years and five series. Only in the first one was he average. Otherwise he was above average. I remember him getting a lot of hits in the 1982. I didn’t know they were all singles. However, he was on base 13 times in 7 games. I would take that. Ironically, it was the only post season series he didn’t have a homerun. The thing was Molitor wasn’t really a homerun hitter. He hit over 20 once. He had a career total of 234.
His great series was the 1993 World Series. He was named MVP of the Series. The scoring was high in the series, but Molitor was at another level. It was like they couldn’t get him out. He batted .500. He made up for not having any extra base hits in the 1982 World Series with 2 doubles, 2 triples and 2 homeruns. He had 6 extra base hits in 6 games. He scored 10 runs and drove in 8 in the series. He not only batted .500 but walked 3 times and was hit by a pitch once. Of course, Paul Molitor could always hit.
