Editor’s note: “Behind the News” is the product of Sun staff assisted by the Sun’s AI lab, which includes a variety of tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini and ChatGPT.

The 3,000 hit club is an exclusive one. Consider: in the long, long history of Major League Baseball and the proto leagues that preceded it, over 20,000 players have suited up for at least one game.