This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

OAKLAND -- In the Rangers’ 8-5 win over the A’s Friday night at the Coliseum, Kole Calhoun, No. 56, became the 56th active player to reach 1,000 career hits.

Calhoun joined Marcus Semien as the only current Rangers to accomplish the feat with a single to the opposite field in the seventh inning of the comeback victory.

The Rangers outfielder said he knew he was nearing the milestone coming into the Angels series earlier in the week, but he wasn’t sure exactly when the 1,000th hit would come. It was an even sweeter accomplishment for a guy like Calhoun, who wasn’t a highly ranked player coming out of high school and didn’t even get drafted until his senior year of college.

Calhoun was eventually selected in the eighth round of the 2010 MLB Draft by the Angels and spent the first eight years of his big league career in Anaheim. 

“It's cool,” Calhoun said. “I think about it, because I always just wanted an opportunity to play this game. I didn't know what was going to happen, if I ever would even really achieve it. And then, before I knew it, I was in the big leagues and now looking at all these years later with 1,000 hits, and it's a cool little journey. I don't want to say that it’s the culmination of it, but to reach this step is pretty neat.”

One familiar face was there to witness Calhoun’s 1,000th hit. Rangers reliever Garrett Richards, who was also signed to a one-year deal this offseason, was drafted by the Angels a year ahead of Calhoun. They played together throughout the Minors and were teammates in the big leagues for six years. But they knew each other prior to that through mutual friends. 

Richards and Calhoun often work out together in the offseason and have seen each other go through the grind of being a big league player. Richards said as much in front of the team after the game. 

“What I said was, when you've hung around as long as we have, things like this happen,” Richards said. “So it's just cool to be able to watch somebody develop over a period of time. Out of 1,000 hits, I've seen a lot of them. It's just really cool. It kind of feels like watching a brother get to a milestone. It was just kind of surreal, but at the same time, like full circle. I'm just happy for him. It's cool to be there to see it with each other.” 

“He was there at the beginning, and nobody else in this clubhouse was for me, personally,” Calhoun added. “We both watched each other grow in this game, so to see where it’s at now is just surreal. It’s perfect baseball stuff. It’s poetic.”