(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas – HOUSTON – Astros fans, you can finally cheer again.

Even if it just doesn’t feel right to pull for a team with one of the worst records in the major leagues.

With Craig Biggio’s 3,000th career hit at Minute Maid Park on Thursday, Houstonians had chance to catch a rare glimpse of baseball’s rarest feats.

Ted Williams couldn’t hit 3,000. Not even Babe Ruth could make it. But on Thursday, Biggio joined the exclusive list of 27 major-leaguers who lasted long enough and stayed productive long enough to gain entrance into the 3,000 club.

Forget the fact that he’s hitting .238 this year and should have reached 3,000 weeks ago. Forget all about the Astros’ self-destructive bullpen. Years from now, nobody will remember how terrible the 2007 season was.

This moment-and for that matter, the entire season-is about Biggio and what he has meant to the city and the club.

He’s come a long way from his first hit, which came exactly 19 years ago today against that season’s Cy Young Award winner, Orel Hershiser.

And he’s done it with nothing but class and professionalism.

That’s opposed to another, slightly more notable ballplayer who happens to be chasing another record this year (cough, Barry Bonds, cough).

In fact, about the only controversy surrounding Biggio in recent memory came this year when he drew the fire of the commissioner’s office for wearing a pin during spring training games that supported the Sunshine Kids, a foundation for cancer-stricken children with which Biggio has been closely linked.

Some scandal that was.

Biggio’s 3,000th hit is the culmination of what has arguably been the greatest career of any player in Astros history.

The catcher-turned-second baseman-turned-center fielder has been the glue that has held the Astros together over the past 20 years.

He is widely considered one of the scrappiest players in the major leagues and is known by pitchers to be one of the toughest outs in any lineup.

Maybe that’s the reason why he’s been hit by pitches more than any other player in baseball’s modern era. Five more plunks, and he breaks the 104-year-old record of 287, which was set by Hughie Jennings of the Brooklyn Superbas.

In the ’90s, a decade of free agency in which players switched uniforms more often than they switched underwear, Biggio managed to stay with one team throughout his entire career.

That loyalty turned into leadership.

Biggio practically runs the Astros clubhouse. Young players like Hunter Pence routinely come to him for advice.

And yet, soon enough, those young players will end up taking his job.

Although his career might be reaching the twilight point, Biggio still has one thing to look forward to: Cooperstown.