MONDAY
Q. Who trails only Babe
Ruth in career slugging percentage?
Hint: You could probably
guess then that he has only The Bambino in front of him in OPS.
Hint: However, for career
on-base percentage, he trails no one. Ruth is next.
Hint: His mother was active
in the Salvation Army; he in the U.S. Army.
- Career SLG %: Ruth = .690; Williams = .634
- Career OPS: Ruth = 1.164; Williams = 1.112
- Career OBP: Williams = .482; Ruth = .417
- Mother May
Venzor Williams, a Mexican-American
from El Paso, Texas, was an evangelist and lifelong soldier in the
Salvation Army. Ted was a Marine
pilot. The term “Army” in the hint is used in the generic sense of
military service--and to add some symmetry. (Plus, you shouldn’t have
needed to read that far before knowing the answer. Hoo-Rah!)
FCR - Mark Pattison,
Washington, DC
Incorrect answers: Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Barry Bonds,
Hank Aaron
TUESDAY
Q. What Hall of Famer
was discovered by another Hall of Fame player?
Hint: Only Alex Rodriguez
has more seasons with 100 RBI.
Hint: He was the first
player to win MVP’s in back-to-back seasons.
Hint: He was the first
player to be awarded three MVP’s.
- Frank
Baker saw Foxx play in high
school and recommended him to the Philadelphia A’s
- A-Rod has had 14 such seasons; Foxx and Gehrig each 13.
- Won AL MVP 1932-33 after rules were changed
allowing a player to win more than once
- Also won MVP in 1938 and would have easily won his second Triple
Crown but his impressive 50 HR fell far short of Hank
Greenberg’s amazing total of 58.
FCR - Joshua Murphy, Cedar
Rapids, IA
Incorrect answers: Eddie Murray, Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig,
Mickey Mantle
WEDNESDAY
Q. Who is the only
player to win batting titles in the AL and NL?
Hint: His career batting
average is second all-time, among right-handed batters.
Hint: For the franchise
where he played for 13 of his 16 major league seasons, he occupies 4 of their
top 10 all-times positions in batting average, on-base percentage, triples and
OPS+.
Hint: A major sports
magazine once wrote of him, "You look at his batting and say well, that chap is
valuable if he couldn't catch the measles, and then you look at his fielding
and conclude that it wouldn't pay to let him go if he couldn't hit a bat
bag."
- Although his 1902 title in the AL is a matter of some
dispute, baseball-reference credits his .376 as the top number
- He trails only Rogers Hornsby .346 to his .358.
- Quote is from Sporting Life
FCR - Blake Sherry, Dublin,
OH
Incorrect answers: Honus Wagner, Frank
Robinson, Tris Speaker, Sam Crawford, Willie McGee, Rogers Hornsby, Nap Lajoie,
Albert Pujols, Mo Vaughn
MIDWEEK BONUS
Q. Who is the
undisputed leader in career sacrifice hits?
Hint: His .333 career
batting average is the highest among Hall of Famers who never won a batting
title.
Hint: No one has played
more games at second base than he did.
Hint: He led the league in
steals 4 times when many would have thought that impossible.
- He had seasons of .369, .365 & .360 without ever winning a
batting title.
- His stolen bases titles came in 1910, 1919, 1923 & 1924 in
an era and a league where Ty Cobb dominated that stat.
FCR - Carl Morton, Vernal,
UT
Incorrect answers: Charlie Gehringer, Frankie Frisch
THURSDAY
Q. Which slugger blasted
an extra-base hit in a record 14 consecutive games?
Hint: He was the first
native of OK to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Hint: He was the first
Pittsburgh Pirates player to win the MVP award.
Hint: In his three years
before coming up to the majors, he hit .369, .356 & .401 in AAA.
- MVP
1927 13 eventual Hall of Famers finished behind him
in the voting that year.
FCR - Dave Serota,
Kalamazoo, MI
Incorrect answers: Lloyd Waner, Arky Vaughan, Ralph Kiner,
Willie Stargell, Pie Traynor
FRIDAY
Q. Who was the first
player to hit a World Series home run after his 40th birthday?
Hint: He was the first
player to hit a World Series home run for a team in each league.
Hint: He connects Hall of
Famer Phil Rizzuto and Rookie of the Year Wally Moon in an unusual way.
Hint: He wasn’t really from
another country.
- STL traded him in April of 1954 to the Yankees because they were
high on young Wally
Moon. Moon debuted 3 days later. With
Slaughter on the roster, NYY no longer needed the services of the aging Rizzuto.
- His nickname was “Country”.
FCR - John Rickert, Terre
Haute, IN
Incorrect answers: Johnny Mize
SATURDAY
Q. Who was the first
ever triple crown winner? (Position player)
Hint: When he retired, his
7,062 at-bats ranked 2nd all-time. That total ranks 276th today.
Hint: He is recorded as the
first player ever to wear sunglasses in a game.
Hint: He was one of the
youngest players in the league when he made his debut at age 17, and one of the
oldest players in his last major league season at age 36.
Hint: At age 65 he was
arrested for pickpocketing in spite of a widely-held reputation as “clean and
upright”.
Hint: A very colorful
player, he put in time with teams named Blue Legs, Sandies, Grays, White
Stockings and Blackbirds.
Hint: He played for three
different major league teams in Washington, DC, each, however, in a different
league.
- TC in 1878 w/PRO: .358, 4 HR, 50 RBI
- Hines’s last year was 1891. Cap Anson already had more AB
at that point plus he played 6 more years.
- Can’t be proven that he was the first to wear sunglasses, but it
is widely accepted.
- Hines’s colorful teams:
- Providence Grays 1878-85 National League
- Chicago White Stockings 1875-77 National Association
- Hines’s DC teams:
- Washington Nationals 1886-87 National League
FCR - Jan Finkel, Swanton,
MD
Incorrect answers: Lip Pike, Cap Anson, Ducky Medwick, Tommy Bond, Rogers Hornsby, Tip
O’Neill, Hugh Duffy, Bobby Lowe, Ross Barnes, Josh Gibson
WEEKEND BONUS
Q. Which 19th-century
star asked Bud Hillerich to make a bat for him, effectively transforming the J.
F. Hillerich woodworking shop into a bat-production company.
Hint: He is regularly
mentioned by baseball historians as someone worthy of Hall of Fame induction.
Hint: He led his league
three times in batting, but not, oddly, the year he hit .400.
Hint: He was unnecessarily
incarcerated in an insane asylum after his retirement. His mental health
was intact. Mastoiditis was the source of his ills.
FCR - Bill Carle, Lee’s
Summit, MO
Incorrect answers: Joe Jackson, Jesse Burkett
SUNDAY
Q. Who led the National
League in steals two years in a row, each time with totals under 20?
Hint: Three other seasons
he came in second in that department.
Hint: He was the manager
when his franchise fully integrated and used black players as starters.
Hint: Bill James says he
was a more valuable third baseman than Pie Traynor, high praise, especially for
that era.
Hint: A testament to his
congenial personality, it was said of him, "He has more friends than
Leo
Durocher has enemies."
- 16 SB in 1938, 17 in 1939. Hack never had more than 21 in
any year.
- 2nd in SB in 1936, 1937 & 1940
- Mgr CHC 1954-56. Ernie
Banks came to the Cubs in
September of 1953.
FCR - Damian Begley, New
York, NY
Incorrect answers: Harry Heilmann, Danny Murtaugh, Charlie
Dressen, Jim Davenport
THEME FOR THE WEEK - Alternate Batting
Champions--Players who would have won batting titles under current rules.
Thanks to reader Craig Wright who regularly produces a regular essay
titled, Pages from Baseball’s Past which contains some of
the very best writing on baseball available today. A while back the title
of his article was “Alternate Batting Champions” and he agreed to let us use
those players as the answers to this week’s questions.
COPYRIGHT 2016 BY CRAIG R. WRIGHT. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED. Reproducing any part of this document is prohibited without the
express written consent of Craig R. Wright.
Alternate Batting Champions
The standard playing time qualification for
the batting title — 3.1 plate appearances per scheduled team game — has
remained unchanged for nearly 60 years. For the earlier batting champions, the
vast majority would have also been eligible under the modern rule, but there
are eight exceptions. Those batting champions deserve to be judged by the
standard of their eras as to who was accepted as a “regular” and eligible for
the title, but it is still interesting to consider who would have won under the
modern standard.
Our first alternate batting champion is from
1879. Due to a huge error in record keeping, Cap Anson was recognized as having the highest
batting average and awarded the batting title. But even if those mistakes had not been made,
Anson would not have been the batting champion under the modern rule, coming up short by
about 30 plate appearances. The alternate batting champion that year would have
been Paul Hines, one of the most underrated players of his generation.
Then in 1886 Guy Hecker was the batting
champion of the American Association and the only pitcher to win a batting
title. Although Hecker went to the plate a lot as a pitcher and a part-time outfielder-first baseman, it was not enough to
qualify in modern times. Instead the batting title would have gone to his
teammate Pete Browning, the Louisville Slugger. That would have given Browning four batting titles for his career.
Browning is not in the Hall of Fame, and if he had been a four-time batting
champion that might have pushed him over the edge.
The most disputed batting championship in the
20th century is a similar case to Anson and Hines in 1879. In 1902 Ed Delahanty
was named the AL batting champion, but subsequent research indicates Larry
Lajoie was mistakenly shorted by four hits and hit 2 points higher than Ed.
However, unlike the 1879 case, it is the batting champion by correction, Larry
Lajoie, who would be ineligible under the modern standard. Just as with the
dispute of the 1879 batting title, it would be a moot debate if the modern
standard were applied.
In 1914 Ty Cobb won the batting title while
missing a bunch of games with a broken rib and a broken thumb. His string of consecutive
batting titles would have been interrupted if the modern rule had applied, and the alternate batting champion
was Eddie Collins. A batting title for Collins would have erased his distinction of racking
up the most career hits without ever winning a batting title (3,315 hits).
In 1926 Hall of Famer Paul Waner, in his
rookie season, is our fifth alternate batting champion. Under the modern rule for eligibility, the
actual batting champion, Bubbles Hargrave, would have come up short by a whopping 111 plate
appearances.
Still, there were few complaints about these
cases of the batting title going to hitters who were borderline “regulars” in
those particular seasons. That changed with the AL batting race of 1932. Since 1920 the consensus standard in the
American League had been that the batting champion had to play in 100 games.
Dale ‘Moose” Alexander of the Red Sox barely passed that mark with 101 games,
and his .367 average gave him the title over Jimmie Foxx. This bothered fans
and baseball writers. Foxx was a popular star and the difference in playing
time between Foxx and Alexander had been immense. Foxx had gone to the plate
702 times — 55% more than Alexander’s 454 plate appearances. Foxx
was the MVP that year and the loss of the batting title cost him the Triple
Crown, which Foxx won the next year. If the modern requirement for the batting
title had existed in 1932, Foxx would have been the first and only player to
win consecutive Triple Crowns! It is said that the Alexander batting title is
what motivated the American League a few years later to change the minimum
qualification for the batting title from 100 games to 400 ABs — which would
have disqualified Alexander in 1932 when he had 392 ABs.
The NL stayed with a general guideline of 100
games, and in 1940 Debs Garms won the batting title which under the modern
standard would have gone to “Smiling Stan” Hack. Stan is not well remembered
today because he was never elected to the Hall of Fame, but he was the best
third baseman of the 1930s and had several good years in the early 1940s as
well. With a batting title on his resume, he might have gotten more
consideration from the Hall of Fame voters.
Two years later Ernie Lombardi won the NL
batting title with just 347 plate appearances, the fewest ever by a batting
champion in a schedule of more than 150 games. Under the modern rules, Hall of
Famer Enos Slaughter would have won the only batting title of his career.
Lombardi was the last batting champion who
would not have been eligible for the batting race under the modern standard.
But there was a freak case in 1954 when the batting champion would have been
eligible under the modern standard, but yet would not have won the batting
title in modern times.
Roberto “Bobby” Avila of the Indians won the
AL batting title with plenty of plate appearances (638) to have been eligible
under the modern requirement. But another player had done so as well, while
hitting for a higher average than Avila. He was ineligible under the standard
that existed in 1954, which was based not on plate appearances, but on times at
bat.
This unique alternate batting champion was Ted
Williams. He easily had enough plate appearances to qualify under the modern
rule with nearly 50 PA more than the minimum. But because Ted walked so much — his 136 walks led
the majors — he came up short of 400 ABs and was ruled ineligible for the batting
title. The injustice of judging whether someone was a regular based on at bats
rather than total trips to the plate led to the discussion that changed the
rule to a minimum of plate appearances in 1957, the standard still followed
today.
|
Year
|
Batting Champion
|
Alternative Champion
|
|
1879
|
Cap Anson?
|
Paul Hines
|
|
1886
|
Guy Hecker
|
Pete Browning
|
|
1902
|
Larry Lajoie?
|
Ed Delahanty
|
|
1914
|
Ty Cobb
|
Eddie Collins
|
|
1926
|
Bubbles Hargrave
|
Paul Waner
|
|
1932
|
Dale Alexander
|
Jimmie Foxx
|
|
1940
|
Debs Garms
|
Stan Hack
|
|
1942
|
Ernie Lombardi
|
Enos Slaughter
|
|
1954
|
Roberto Avila
|
Ted Williams
|
Research Notes
The sense of who was a regular tended to be
more lenient the further back in history we go. But there were some baseball leaders who
personally favored — or at least put forth — tougher options for consideration.
Notably, National League president John Heydler at one time suggested the
batting champ should have to appear in at least three-quarters of his team’s
games. Heydler ultimately favored leaving it open-ended as that requirement
would have made it very difficult for catchers of that era to meet that minimum
qualification. Heydler specifically did support catcher Bubbles Hargrave as the
1926 batting champion even though he did not play in 75% of the games.
Interestingly, Heydler’s proposed requirement would have made each of the nine alternative hitters mentioned
in this story the batting champion, including Ted Williams.
In 1902 the unofficial statistics at the end
of the season gave Larry Lajoie a huge 15-point lead over Ed Delahanty. That
made it surprising when the official numbers came out and there had been a
22-point swing with Ed being the batting champion by a 7-point margin. I don’t
know why but The Sporting News has reported for many decades an even larger
10-point lead for Delahanty. A biographer of Delahanty cites his own research
in saying Ed had a 14-point lead. But Baseball-Reference.com, the leading modern reference source that best covers the
corrections in the old records, supports the finding that Lajoie hit 2 points
higher than Delahanty. That is also the accepted result in the SABR biography
on Ed Delahanty. What is most relevant to this story is that Lajoie was
clearly seen in 1902 as being eligible for the batting race, but he would not
have qualified under the modern standard.
First Correct Respondent
to Identify Theme – No one
Incorrect theme guesses:
Monday -
Military members in the Hall of Fame.
Tuesday -
Red Sox players with at least 5 walks in a game
- Boston Hall of Famers
- Players who won AL MVP award with double letters in
last name
- members of milestone batting marks who appeared in at
least a new game as
a pitcher in
the majors
