 Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt.In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on "The Sporting News"' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron).