Derek Jeter stood on first base. His single in Seattle had pulled the rookie to 4,255 hits behind baseball’s career leader, Pete Rose. The ball was retrieved. He was 20 years old.

Jeter is now 38 and a baseball immortal. Even before he steps to the plate for his next at-bat, he is rounding third and heading for home — more than three-quarters of the way to 4,256. Jeter is now 1,008 hits behind Rose.

A little more than a thousand hits. Can he do it? Jeter amassed his fastest 1,000 in 749 games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. His slowest, meantime, took 801 games over five seasons, a stretch that ended this summer. Barring the miraculous, Jeter would be far slower still to the next thousand. That would put him at age 44 or 45 when he reaches Rose, if he is still playing. It is no coincidence that in the history of baseball, only one man had 1,000 hits after turning 38: Rose himself.

Still, in this, his 18th season, Jeter has found his inner rookie; he is batting .317 and leading all of baseball in hits with 160. (He also has the most at-bats.) And the four primary factors that beget hits — beyond monumental talent — are all in Jeter’s favor.