On the Verge of Two Million Runs

There was much fanfare in 1975 when Bob Watson scored baseball’s millionth run. With baseball’s historical stats in flux, the two millionth will score this week without much fuss.

For 145 years, players have stepped, slid, walked, tumbled and jumped on white rubber slabs all over the continent. It is the act of scoring a run, the objective of baseball, and it is adding up to an impending milestone. From the reign of Queen Victoria to the era of launch angles, a parade of ballplayers crossed home plate 1,999,610 times through Monday’s games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the official statisticians for Major League Baseball. That means that in the coming days — no one knows exactly when — some lucky player will set spike to rubber and score what will officially be the two millionth run in M.L.B. history.