Fun With Retrosheet: Come-From-Behind Batting Champions, An Update
September 28, 2011 by Tom Ruane · Leave a Comment
John Pastier was wondering (among other things) about the record for the most days leading the league in batting average without winning the title. Here’s the list:
Player Year LED DNL DNQ First Last Pete Reiser 1942 131 36 0 5-11 9-24 Lenny Dykstra 1990 125 37 10 5-11 9-14 Larry Walker 1997 124 57 0 4-10 9-19 John Kruk 1992 117 64 0 4- 7 8-27 Tony Cuccinello 1945 115 18 34 5- 1 8-27 Jimmie Foxx 1929 110 63 0 4-17 9-12 Tommy Holmes 1945 106 61 0 4-22 8-31 Mike Piazza 1996 105 77 0 5-26 9-25 Stan Musial 1958 104 63 0 4-23 9-11 Jeff Burroughs 1978 100 78 0 4-27 9- 6
Where LED is the number of days leading the league, DNL the number of days not leading the league, DNQ the number of days not qualifying (again, by modern standards), and First and Last contain the first and last dates they led the league.
And the flip side, the leaders who were in front of the pack for the fewest days.
Player Year LED DNL DNQ First Last Harry Heilmann 1925 2 165 7 6- 5 10- 4 Ellis Burks 1996 4 177 0 9-26 9-29 Ted Williams 1958 4 152 9 9-13 9-28 Lou Boudreau 1944 5 153 8 9-27 10- 1 Buddy Myer 1935 5 158 3 8-13 9-29 Enos Slaughter 1942 5 162 0 4-23 9-27 Willie Mays 1954 6 161 0 9-20 9-26 Lew Fonseca 1929 8 166 0 9-29 10- 6 Chick Hafey 1931 8 17 110 9-19 9-27 Paul Waner 1926 9 92 66 9-21 9-29
We discussed some of these in the original article and of course, some of the entries on each list are paired. So when Foxx faded down the stretch in 1929, Fonseca eventually grabbed the title, Reiser lost his lead at the end of 1942 to Slaughter, and Piazza was passed by Ellis Burks in 1996,
John also wondered about the closest three-way batting races. Between 1918 and 2010 (and once again, using the modern standard of 3.1 plate appearances per game), the closest races:
Year Lg Gap Players 1991 NL .00213 Tony Pendleton (.31911) Hal Morris (.31799) Tony Gwynn (.31698) 2003 AL .00268 Bill Mueller (.32634) Manny Ramirez (.32513) Derek Jeter (.32365) 1976 AL .00275 George Brett (.33333) Hal McRae (.33207) Rod Carew (.33058) 1935 AL .00323 Buddy Myer (.34903) Joe Vosmik (.34839) Jimmie Foxx (.34579) 1944 AL .00325 Lou Boudreau (.32705) Bobby Doerr (.32479) Bob Johnson (.32381) 1940 NL .00335 Stan Hack (.31675) Johnny Mize (.31434) Jim Gleeson (.31340)
Note: this does not include the 1931 NL race, which officially included three batters within a single percentage point. One of these, however, was Jim Bottomley, who appeared in only 108 games and would not have qualified under modern standards.
The above was originally posted by Tom Ruane at Retrosheet.org .
