OK, so it took Ripken a while to get there. It took him 10,803 at-bats, in fact -- more than any other man in the 3,000 Hit Club and almost 250 more than the previous owner of that distinction, David Winfield (10,559). But so what?

We remember asking Wade Boggs about Ripken last year, as he was chasing his own 3,000th hit. Boggs laughed and quipped: "Hey, I might be chasing 4,000 if I hadn't had any days off."

Yeah, maybe he would. Matter of fact, give Tony Gwynn those 10,803 at-bats and (assuming he was still at .339 lifetime) he'd have had 3,662 hits by then.

But here's a big "So what?" to that, too. You think it's so easy just to go out there, plug away and get those hits, year after year after year? Then how come the only two position players who were in the big leagues when Ripken arrived in '81 and are still there are Rickey Henderson and Harold Baines?

And back in Ripken's Rookie-of-the-Year season in 1982, neither the NL award-winner (Steve Sax) nor the runners-up in each league (Kent Hrbek and Johnny Ray) even got to within 1,000 of 3,000 hits.

Let's remember that Ripken collected his 3,000 hits while mostly playing what is considered to be a defensive position. And it's not as if all he did was show up, put on a uniform for 19 years and then go tip his cap in the old Metrodome. Let's remember what he accomplished along the way:

That sure sounds like a Hall of Fame career from this angle. And what do you know -- we never even mentioned the two magic Cal Ripken numbers he'll be most known for: 2,632 and 3,000.

Because, ultimately, you don't judge a Hall of Famer on magic numbers alone. If you can ignore those numbers and still say this guy belongs in the Hall of Fame, then the argument's over.

And in the case of Calvin E. Ripken Jr., it was over a long time before that number 3,000 came into his life.

Useless Information Dept.

According to Stats Inc.'s Jim Henzler, the Mets hadn't committed three infield errors in the same game since Aug. 10, 1997. That's 394 games ago, counting the '99 playoffs. Last year, that infield's only TWO-error game was the fourth game of the season. So just in April alone, this unit has had twice as many multi-error games as all last year (Game 2 in Tokyo was the other). Hard to believe.

And Texas is in the midst of 12 straight games against the Yankees, Red Sox and Indians -- including an eight-game stretch in which it has faced or will face David Cone, Orlando Hernandez, Dave Burba, Bartolo Colon, Chuck Finley, El Duque again, Cone again and Roger Clemens. Some fun.