All hits in a season are homers
Posted by Andy on August 17, 2007
When former major leaguer Clem Labine passed away earlier this year, I noticed on his main B-R.com page that with the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, he had 3 hits that all went for homers. He still managed just a .387 SLG since he had 28 other at-bats with no hits.
At that time (March 2007), the PI was in its infancy and I asked Sean how many times a player had all of his hits in a season go for homers. It's a pretty easy search actually:
Cnt Player Year H HR Age Tm Lg G PA AB R 2B 3B RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+----+---+--+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Jorge Sosa 2006 3 3 29 TOT NL 46 32 24 4 0 0 3 2 0 11 0 6 0 0 0 0 .125 .192 .500 .692 *1 2 Keith McDonald 2000 3 3 27 STL NL 6 9 7 3 0 0 5 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .429 .556 1.714 2.270 /*2 3 Clem Labine 1955 3 3 28 BRO NL 60 37 31 4 0 0 5 3 0 18 0 3 0 0 0 0 .097 .176 .387 .563 *1 4 Ed Sanicki 1949 3 3 25 PHI NL 7 15 13 4 0 0 7 1 0 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 .231 .286 .923 1.209 /*98
1 Robert Person 2002 2 2 32 PHI NL 17 29 24 3 0 0 7 2 0 17 0 3 0 0 0 0 .083 .154 .333 .487 *1
This is just for players with at least 2 HR. One hit for one homer in a season has been done 125 times, and there are four players (Hong-Chih Kuo, Terry Evans, Jeff Bailey, and Jason Schmidt) who have one hit so far in 2007 for a homer.
Incidentally, Person's 2 HR in 2002 came in the same game, which we previously discussed here.
The leaders for all hits in a season going for triples:
Cnt Player Year H 3B Age Tm Lg G PA AB R 2B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+----+---+--+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Mark L. Johnson 1998 2 2 22 CHW AL 7 24 23 2 0 0 1 1 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 .087 .125 .261 .386 /*2 2 Chico Walker 1983 2 2 25 BOS AL 4 5 5 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .400 .400 1.200 1.600 /*7 3 Bobby Estalella 1936 2 2 25 WSH AL 13 13 9 2 0 0 0 4 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 .222 .462 .667 1.129 4 Cecil Bolton 1928 2 2 24 CLE AL 4 15 13 1 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .154 .267 .462 .729 /*3 5 Limb McKenry 1916 2 2 27 CIN NL 6 5 5 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .400 .400 1.200 1.600 /*1 6 Ed Irvin 1912 2 2 30 DET AL 1 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .667 .667 2.000 2.667 /*5 7 Mike O'Neill 1907 2 2 29 CIN NL 9 32 29 5 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 .069 .129 .207 .336 /*7
And for doubles:
Cnt Player Year H 2B Age Tm Lg G PA AB R 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+----+---+--+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Rikkert Faneyte 1994 3 3 25 SFG NL 19 29 26 1 0 0 4 3 0 11 0 0 0 1 0 0 .115 .207 .231 .438 /98 2 Roger McDowell 1988 3 3 27 NYM NL 63 9 9 1 0 0 2 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333 .333 .667 1.000 *1 3 Dennis Powell 1986 3 3 22 LAD NL 27 14 14 1 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 .214 .214 .429 .643 *1 4 Jeff Reed 1984 3 3 21 MIN AL 18 24 21 3 0 0 1 2 0 6 0 1 0 0 0 0 .143 .217 .286 .503 *2 5 Al Worthington 1966 3 3 37 MIN AL 65 11 11 2 0 0 3 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 .273 .273 .545 .818 *1 6 Earl Hersh 1956 3 3 24 MLN NL 7 13 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 .231 .231 .462 .693 /7 7 Alvin Dark 1946 3 3 24 BSN NL 15 13 13 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 .231 .231 .462 .693 *6/7 8 Charlie Barnabe 1927 3 3 27 CHW AL 18 24 19 3 0 0 5 4 0 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 .158 .304 .316 .620 *1 9 Verdo Elmore 1924 3 3 24 SLB AL 7 18 17 2 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 .176 .222 .353 .575 /9 10 Henry Gehring 1908 3 3 27 WSH AL 5 5 5 2 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .600 .600 1.200 1.800 /*1
Roger McDowell?!?!?
Perhaps a more interesting one is all of a player's hits in a season going for singles:
Cnt Player Year H 1B Age Tm Lg G PA AB R 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+----+---+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Jack O'Connor 1906 33 37 SLB AL 55 184 174 8 0 0 0 11 2 0 0 0 8 0 0 4 0 .190 .199 .190 .389 *2
1 Lynn Nelson 1938 31 33 PHA AL 67 119 112 12 0 0 0 15 7 0 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 .277 .319 .277 .596 1 2 Bill Stumpf 1912 31 20 NYY AL 42 143 129 8 0 0 0 10 6 0 0 1 7 0 0 5 0 .240 .279 .240 .519 *6/4583
1 Mike Gallego 1995 28 34 OAK AL 43 132 120 11 0 0 0 8 9 0 24 1 2 0 3 0 1 .233 .292 .233 .525 465
1 Frank Baumholtz 1956 27 37 PHI NL 76 112 100 13 0 0 0 9 6 0 6 1 2 3 3 0 2 .270 .309 .270 .579 9/8
1 Dave Nelson 1969 25 25 CLE AL 52 137 123 11 0 0 0 6 9 1 26 1 2 2 2 4 3 .203 .259 .203 .462 *4/79 2 Doc Farrell 1933 25 31 NYY AL 44 112 93 16 0 0 0 6 16 0 6 0 3 0 0 0 0 .269 .376 .269 .645 *64 3 Otis Lawry 1916 25 22 PHA AL 41 137 123 10 0 0 0 4 9 0 21 1 4 0 0 4 0 .203 .263 .203 .466 *4/78 4 Mordecai Brown 1908 25 31 CHC NL 46 128 121 5 0 0 0 4 2 0 0 0 5 0 0 2 0 .207 .220 .207 .427 *1
I checked as high as 40 and didn't find anyone above O'Connor's 33. Incidentally, the leader for 2006 was Chan Ho Park, with 11 hits, all for singles. He hit .286/.286/.286 that year.
This is just a sort of statistical oddity, but it's one of those things you start to notice when you look at enough B-R.com pages...
August 17th, 2007 at 8:50 am
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_McDonald
Keith McDonald is the only player with more than one career hit to have all his career hits go for homers.
August 18th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
13 men (not including those players active in 2007) have had a homer as their only career hit, plus McDonald who is the only player with multiple career hits all of which were homers. Chris Jelic was one of the 13 only-hit-was-a-homer guy; I have a profile of Jelic's career at http://www.metaforian.blogspot.com/
October 18th, 2007 at 5:10 am
[...] who died earlier this year at age 80, was mentioned on this blog back in August, by having all 3 hits in a season go for homers back in [...]