01 (001-084) chapter 1 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page 2 THE BASEBALL MANIAC’S ALMANAC 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page i Also by Bert Randolph Sugar Baseball’s 50 Greatest Games Baseball Picture Quiz Book The Baseball Trivia Book The Baseball Trivia Book to End All Baseball Trivia Books, Promise! The Great Baseball Players from McGraw to Mantle Rain Delays Who Was Harry Steinfeldt? & Other Baseball Trivia Questions 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page ii The ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, and WITHOUT QUESTION GREATEST Book of Baseball FACTS, FIGURES, & Astonishing LISTS Ever Compiled! THE BASEBALL MANIAC’S ALMANAC Bert Sugar Editor 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page iii 01 (001-084) chapter 1 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page 2 Copyright © 2005 by Bert Randolph Sugar. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. 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If you’d like more information about this book, its author, or related books and websites, please click here. v CONTENTS Preface xxvii Part 1 Individual Statistics 1 1 Batting 3 Base Hits 3 Most Hits by Decade 3 Evolution of Singles Record 4 Base Hit Leaders by State of Birth 4 Players with 200 Hits and 40 Home Runs, Season 5 Players with 200 Base Hits and Fewer Than 40 Extra-Base Hits, Season (Post-1900) 5 Players with 3000 Hits, Career 6 Most Hits by Position, Season 6 Most Times at Bat Without a Hit, Season 6 Players with 200 Hits in Each of First Three Major League Seasons 7 Players with 200-Hit Seasons in Each League 7 Players with 200 Hits in Five Consecutive Seasons 7 Rookies with 200 or More Hits 7 Teammates Finishing One-Two in Base Hits 7 Players Getting 1000 Hits Before Their 25th Birthday 8 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page v For more information about this title, click here vi Contents Players with 10000 At Bats and Fewer Than 3000 Hits, Career 8 Players with 200 Hits, Batting Under .300, Season 8 Players with 2500 Hits and Career .300 Batting Average, Never Winning Batting Title (Post-1900) 8 Players with 2500 Career Hits, Never Having a 200-Hit Season 9 Most Hits by Switch-Hitter, Career 9 Most Hits by Catcher, Career 9 Most Singles, Career 9 Fewest Singles, Season (Min. 150 Games) 10 Most Singles, Season 11 Largest Differential Between League Leader in Hits and Runner-Up 12 Batting Average 12 Evolution of Batting Average Record 12 Highest Batting Average by Position, Season 12 Highest Batting Average by Decade (2000 At Bats) 13 Top 10 Rookie Batting Averages, Each League (Min. 100 Games) 14 Lifetime Batting Averages of 20-Year Players (Not Including Pitchers) 14 Players Never Hitting Below .270 in Career (Min. 10 Years) 15 .400 Hitters and How Their Team Finished 15 .400 Hitters Versus League Batting Average (Post-1900) 16 Players Hitting .370 Since Ted Williams’s .406 Season (1941) 16 Players Hitting .300 in Rookie and Final Seasons (Post-1900; Min. Five Years) 16 Players Hitting .300 in Their Only Major League Season (Post-1900; Min. 100 Games, 300 At Bats) 16 Players 40 or Older Hitting .300 (Min. 50 Games) 17 Batters Hitting .325 for Two or More Different Clubs (Post-1945) 17 Batting Title 19 Closest Batting Races 19 Teammates Finishing One-Two in Batting Race 19 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page vi viiContents Switch-Hitting Batting Champions 20 Catchers Winning Batting Titles 20 Batting Champions on Last-Place Teams 20 Batting Title Winners Without a Home Run 21 Batting Champions Driving in Fewer Than 40 Runs 21 Batting Champions with 100 Strikeouts in Year They Led League 21 Lowest Batting Averages to Lead League 21 Highest Batting Average Not to Win Batting Title 21 Runners-Up for Batting Titles in Both Leagues 22 Players Winning Batting Title in Season After Joining New Club 22 Players Changing Team in Season After Winning Batting Title 23 Largest Margin Between Batting Champion and Runner-Up 23 Champions Whose Next Season’s Batting Average Declined the Most 24 Lowest Lifetime Batting Averages for Players Who Led League 24 Two-Time Batting Champions with Lifetime Batting Averages Below .300 25 Years in Which Right-Handed Batters Won Batting Titles in Both Leagues 25 Home Runs 26 Evolution of Home Run Record 26 Most Home Runs by Decade 26 Career Home Run Leaders by Zodiac Sign 27 All-Time Home Run Leaders by First Letter of Last Name 27 Home Run Leaders by State of Birth 28 Most Home Runs in First Three Seasons in Majors 29 Most Home Runs for One Club 29 Most Home Runs by Position, Career 29 Most Home Runs Not Leading League, Season 30 Most Home Runs, Never Leading League, Career 30 Most Inside-the-Park Home Runs, Career (Post-1898) 31 Players with 10 or More Letters in Last Name, Hitting 40 or More Home Runs in Season 31 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page vii viii Contents Most Home Runs, Month by Month 31 Most Home Runs by Position, Season 31 Players Leading League in Home Runs for Different Teams 32 Players Hitting a Total of 100 Home Runs in Two Consecutive Seasons 33 Players with First 20-Home Run Season After 35th Birthday 33 Shortstops with at Least Seven Consecutive 20-Home Run Seasons 33 Players Hitting Four Home Runs in One Game 34 Players with Three Home Runs in One Game, Fewer Than 10 in Season 35 Rookies Hitting 30 or More Home Runs 35 Players with 50 Home Runs, Batting Under .300, Season 35 Players Hitting 49 Home Runs in Season, Never Hitting 50 36 Most Consecutive Seasons Hitting Grand Slams 36 Most Home Runs by Age 36 Teenagers Hitting Grand Slams 36 Oldest Players to Hit Grand Slams 36 Oldest Home Run Champions 37 Most Career Home Runs by Players Hitting Home Run on First Pitch in Majors 37 Players Hitting Home Run in First At Bat, Never Hitting Another 38 Most At Bats, No Home Runs, Career 38 Most Consecutive At Bats Without a Home Run 38 Lowest Batting Average for Home Run Leaders, Season (Post-1900) 38 Players Hitting 30 or More Home Runs in First Three Seasons 39 Reverse 30–30 Club: Players with 30 Home Runs and 30 Errors, Season 39 Players Increasing Their Home Run Production in Seven Consecutive Seasons 39 Most Home Runs by Switch-Hitters, Career 40 Most Home Runs by Catcher, Season 40 Most Home Runs by Catcher, Career 40 100 Home Runs, Both Leagues 41 Most Home Runs Hit in One Ballpark, Career 41 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page viii [...]... thing: Despite the mushrooming cloud of suspicion hanging over baseball and some of its players concerning whether their achievements were chemically enhanced or not, I do not believe that The Baseball Maniac’s Almanac is the proper forum for a discussion of whether their records belong in a record book such as this or in a pharmaceutical treatise (Hell, back in the 1920s it wasn’t the players who... still, baseball trivia was just a closet hobby—that is, until the summer of 1955, when it came out For that was the year an elderly Georgia housewife by the name of Myrtle Powers appeared on the then top-rated TV show, The $64,000 Question,” answering questions on the subject of baseball Ms Powers would answer 10 questions in her selected category, the 10th and final one from emcee Hal March being, The. .. Seasons in Majors (Post-1900) 163 Father-Son Tandems Who Both Played for Same Manager Sons Who Played for Their Fathers 163 163 Best Won–Lost Percentage for Pitching Brothers 164 Most Total Combined Career Wins for Pitching Brothers Pitching Brothers Facing Each Other, Regular Season 165 166 Most Career Victories by Father-Son Combination (Post-1900) Brothers Who Played Together on Three Major League Teams... too did baseball Jump-skip, dear readers, to the 1970s, when the trickle of baseball trivia based on statistics became a Niagara, as, to paraphrase Jimmy Durante’s famous line, “Everybody was trying to get into the act.” For that was the decade when Bob Davids, together with a fusion of like-minded souls, founded the Society for American Preface Baseball Research (SABR); rotisserie or fantasy baseball. .. have The Baseball Maniac’s Almanac, not only a labor of love but a labor, period Here it should be noted that baseball records are a transitory thing, one subject to discontinuation without notice The names of previous record holders seem to disappear with all the suddenness of the flame of a candle that has been blown out, leaving hardly a whisper of smoke And so it was that updating the old Baseballistics... easy chore, the records and names having changed many times over in the 20-plus years since the first edition was published Take the aforementioned Myrtle Powers’s answer to those having 3,000 hits While she could rattle off the names of the six players after Cobb who had 3,000 hits back in 1955, today she would take up the entire airtime of The $64,000 Question” coming up with the names of the 25 players... leaped across the table, grabbing Clarke by the neck and choking him until two newspapermen rushed to the fallen Clarke’s aid and pried Cobb’s fingers from his by-now purple throat Another story, told by sportswriter Fred Lieb, recounted how Babe Ruth, known then as the premier slugger in baseball or, as his sultanate was known, the premier “Swatter”—appeared at his house in the wee hours of the morn accompanied... those SOBs I once led the league in ERAs .” xxix xxx Preface By the 1920s, others, paying full faith and credit to those who had preceded them—like Edmund Vance Cook, Elias Munro, and Frank Menke—began putting statistical tags on almost everything that took place between the white lines And soon those stats begot the next natural step, baseball trivia, as fans found the curriculum of baseball, as expressed... according to the daily newspaper accounts, struck out 349 batters, not the 343 he was credited with And so Feller’s name was stricken from the strikeout record book and Waddell’s reinserted By the second decade of the twentieth century, those straightlined figures known as statistics had become a damnably serious business, not just to the fans but to the players themselves So serious were they that one... the 25 players who, in the words of the emcee, have “garnered” 3,000 hits—18 more joining this less-than-exclusive club in the passing years, including the passing of Cobb by Pete Rose to the top of the hit parade To complicate matters, one of the six she mentioned, Cap Anson, who played between 1871 and 1897, was credited with 3,418 hits in the 1951 Official Encyclopedia of Baseball Today, in a recount . Games Baseball Picture Quiz Book The Baseball Trivia Book The Baseball Trivia Book to End All Baseball Trivia Books, Promise! The Great Baseball Players from McGraw. PM Page 2 THE BASEBALL MANIAC’S ALMANAC 00 (i-xxxiv) front matter 4/1/05 1:30 PM Page i Also by Bert Randolph Sugar Baseball s 50 Greatest Games Baseball