Tuesday Trivia: Hit parade

[commishbob]

We’ll that hint kills my next guess which was going to be Ed Delehanty. I would have bet on one 19th Century guy among them. Like Peter I’m giving up and gonna play Google

[cgjackson222]

There were only 6 different 19th century players to amass at least 225 hits in a season and Ed Delahanty is one of them (238 in 1899).
The others are Tip O'Neil (225 in 1887), Billy Hamilton (225 in 1894), Jesse Burkett (225 in 1895), the aforementioned Duffy (237 in 1894) and Keeler (239 in 1897), and Jesse Burkett again (240 in 1896).

[Mark17]

Paul Waner or Frankie Frisch?

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Paul Waner or Frankie Frisch?

Great guesses, but Paul Waner topped out at 237 hits in his sophomore effort in 1927. Frisch's peak was 223 hits in 1923.

[cgjackson222]

Clue #2: One of the two players we haven't named that had 250 hits in a season won the triple crown. (We have already named Hornsby, Terry and Simmons)

[cgjackson222]

Not sure anyone is still playing along, so I'll reveal the answers.

In addition to Ichiro, Sisler, and the 3 named players as part of this trivia--Hornsby, Bill Terry, and Al Simmons, the remaining two players to amass 250 hits in single season are Lefty O'Doul and Chuck Klein

[cgjackson222]

A few facts about Lefty O'Doul and Chuck Klein:

1) O’Doul’s road to baseball began at age 15 in 1912 at the Bay View School in San Francisco. The school’s baseball coach, a woman named Rosie Stoltz, helped develop his fundamentals. He later noted, Stoltz “taught me the essential fundamentals of the game. She taught me to pitch, field and hit.” Their club won the city championship that first year. The following year, at age sixteen, O’Doul quit school to join his father in the slaughterhouse.

2) Playing for the San Francisco Seals in 1927, O’Doul won the first-ever PCL most valuable player award, batting .378 with 278 hits and 33 home runs. But he actually made his MLB debut in 1919 and had already made a few appearances between in 1919-20, 22-23 mostly as a below average pitcher. (His official Rookie season was 1923 at age 26)

3) Had his breakout year at age 32 in 1929, collecting 254 hits, batting .398, hitting 32 Home Runs and narrowly finishing 2nd in the MVP voting behind Rogers Hornsby. Finished his career with a .349 Batting Average—4th Best all-time.

4) After leaving the majors, O’Doul returned to his birthplace of San Francisco and managed the San Francisco Seals (PCL) for 17 years (a team he had briefly pitched for in 1916), as well as other teams, amassing more than 2,000 wins, a total surpassed by only eight men in minor league history. The most famous player he managed was Joe DiMaggio, another San Franciscan. About Joe he said “I was just smart enough to leave him alone.”

5) A renowned batting coach, his pupils include Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and Willie McCovey in addition to the DiMaggio brothers.


6) He trained countless Japanese in the skills of the game and fostered communication and interaction between those in the Japanese and American games both before and after the Second World War. He is also credited as one of the founders of Nippon Professional Baseball. For his efforts, O’Doul was the first American elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

7) The Tokyo Giants, sometimes considered "Japan's Baseball Team", were named by him in 1935 in honor of his longtime association with the New York Giants; the logo and uniform of the Giants in Japan strongly resemble their North American counterparts.

8) At age 60, he opened the sports bar/restaurant Lefty O’Doul’s in 1957, which was one of the longest running sports bars in the country, closing its doors in 2017 after almost 60 years.