THIS DAY IN BÉISBOL May 12: Alfonso Soriano becomes 7th player with 100 HR, 500 RBI, 500 runs in each league

Alfonso Soriano isn’t the first name that comes to mind when listing superstar players of the early 2000s.

But on this day in béisbol, May 12, 2014, the 38-year-old Dominican Republic native, on his second stint with the Yankees and in the final season of his career, tied a record that showed just how productive he was. 

Facing Mets starter Bartolo Colon at The Stadium, Soriano’s second-inning single made him only the seventh player with 100 home runs, 500 RBIs and 500 runs scored in both leagues. The other six weren’t bad hitters: Hall of Famers Frank Robinson, Dave Winfield and Vladimir Guerrero, plus Fred McGriff, Orlando Cabrera and Carlos Lee.

That accomplishment, along with 412 lifetime HRs and a respectable 2,095 hits, has had Soriano supporters clamoring for his being seriously considered for Cooperstown since he retired with the Yankees, the team that signed him out of a Japanese league in 1998 as a wiry, speedy infielder with power potential.

Soriano, a seven-time all-star who played with the Cubs for seven years, plus two with the Rangers and one with the Nationals, is also one of a handful of players to achieve an extremely rare 40-40 season — more than 40 homers and 40 stolen bases. He did it with Washington in 2006 with 46 round-trippers and 41 swipes, a year he also won the Silver Slugger as a left fielder and was sixth in MVP voting.

He also had three 30-30 seasons, another distinction that puts the unsung star squarely in the Cooperstown conversation next year, his second of eligibility.

 

Photo: Ben Grey – Under Creative Commons license