This week's question comes from Lounge friend, and baseball fan, John Steele. John's question:
This Hall of Fame slugger once led the majors in batting average and had the requisite number of plate appearances, but did not win a batting crown. Who is he and why didn’t he?
With John's permission, I offer the following hints:
1) In addition to hitting for average, I also hit with power, finishing my career with over 500 home runs.
2) I've been a member of the Hall of Fame for less than 20 years.
Pictured: Future first-ballot Hall of Famer Albert Pujols (card #464 from the 2010 Topps Heritage set). Pujols and Ichiro have the two highest career batting averages of any active players (link here).
I'll invite John to moderate the comments.
I'm not a baseball trivia person, but I'll take a guess at this one: was it Eddie Murray? (magical thinking: we're the same age and he's one of my all-time favorite players) As to why he did not win the batting crown (presuming it's him), I have no idea but am rather curious.
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | September 25, 2010 at 09:11 AM
I don't have a guess (yet) for who it is, but the reason is probably that he was traded from one league to the other mid-season, thereby ensuring that he didn't have the requisite plate appearances in either league (though he had them when combined).
Posted by: Chris Hammer | September 25, 2010 at 10:20 AM
You guys are 1.5 out of 2. Patrick's right, and Chris is on the right track. Murray played the whole season for the Dodgers that year. Something else odd happened.
Posted by: John Steele | September 25, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Strike year?
Posted by: David | September 25, 2010 at 11:18 AM
nope, not a strike year.
Posted by: John Steele | September 25, 2010 at 11:23 AM
Someone else in the NL had a higher average and enough plate appearances to win the NL batting crown but was either traded into or out of the league at some point in the season? That person's batting average for the year was lower than Murray's, but higher while in the NL...
Posted by: Garrett | September 25, 2010 at 11:35 AM
Garrett,
Yes, Willie McGee had enough NL appearances and then was traded to the A's, where his batting average fell. Murray ended up with the best BA in the majors, edging out George Brett, but didn't win the NL crown.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1990_National_League_batting_title
Posted by: John Steele | September 25, 2010 at 01:57 PM
Sounds like he deserves to join the 1981 Cincinnati Reds, the 1994 Montreal Expos, Armando Galarraga, and Harvey Haddix in a special Cooperstown wing for teams and or players whose achievements were memorably taken done a notch by a strange twist in baseball history. (One might also include the 2003 Cubs, but it's hard to call an end-of-the-season collapse like that "strange" when stuff like that happens to them so often).
Posted by: Marc Blitz | September 26, 2010 at 09:28 PM
I really like Albert, I'm a big fan of him, He is a great player ever I seen in baseball.
Posted by: Baseball Jerseys | September 28, 2010 at 06:38 AM