The Ox That Ate The Georgia Peach

It’s on the short list of baseball’s records least likely to be broken: Ty Cobb’s lifetime major league batting average of .367. Another Detroit Tiger, Miguel Cabrera, holds the highest active lifetime average at this writing, at .320, with Minnesota’s Joe Mauer and the Angels’ Albert Pujols just percentage points behind.

But what player holds the all-time professional baseball record for highest lifetime batting average, when we combine both his major and minor league statistics?

Do you want to guess Cobb? You would be close, but in this category Cobb finishes second (barely) to a player you’ve most likely never heard of.

In Cobb’s two minor league seasons in 1904 and 1905, he accumulated 166 hits in 546 at-bats (for a .304 mark). If we add those numbers to his officially-recognized major league totals of 4,191 hits and 11,429 at-bats, we come up with career totals of 4,357 and 11,975. That makes for a combined lifetime major and minor league average of .363841.

The player who tops Cobb on this list, however, was one of the most prolific minor league hitters of all time, yet he had only two brief (and unimpressive) stints in the big leagues. He was born in Yorktown, Texas, on December 23, 1901, and his name was Oscar George Eckhardt, better known as Ox.

In a minor league career that began in 1925 and spanned 14 seasons, Ox Eckhardt batted 7,563 times, with 2,773 base hits, for a hefty .367 batting average. He didn’t reach the big time until 1932, at age 30, when he appeared in eight games for the Boston Braves, going 2-8. He resurfaced again four years later with the Brooklyn Dodgers, totaling eight hits in 44 official trips to the plate.

Thus, Eckhardt’s combined major and minor league totals are 2,783 hits in 7,615 AB’s, giving him a lifetime professional average of .365462.

While a large man for his time at 6’1″ and 185 pounds, Eckhardt wasn’t a slugger, with only 66 minor league home runs. But despite his awkward form at the plate, the left-handed batter was an expert opposite-field hitter. A multi-sport star in high school, Eckhardt entered the University of Texas in 1919, where he played halfback in football, forward in basketball, and pitched on the Longhorn baseball team.

A tryout with the Cleveland Indians in 1925 led to his first pro contract, but after only two games with Austin of the Texas Association, Eckhardt quit the game. He landed a job as the football and baseball coach at West Texas State Teachers College (now West Texas A&M). He and his new wife also bought a cattle ranch just outside of Austin.

But a Detroit Tigers’ scout by the name of Eddie Goostree talked Eckhardt into giving baseball another shot. Now 26 years old, Eckhardt was assigned to Amarillo in the Western League, where he promptly went out and hit .376, with 27 triples.

The outfielder was invited to spring training by Detroit in 1929, 1930, and 1931, but never made the final cut. He also saw action with the New York football Giants in the fall of 1928, as a halfback.

Between 1931 and 1935, Eckhardt had some monster seasons for the Mission Reds of the Pacific Coast League. San Francisco had two teams in the PCL, with the Reds and the Seals both playing in old Seals Stadium. Eckhardt averaged .387 in his years as a Red, including a phenomenal 1933, when he hit .414 with 315 hits in 189 games (Because of the fine California climate, PCL teams played longer seasons than those in the major leagues.). In 1935, Eckhardt beat out the Seals’ Joe DiMaggio for the batting title, .399 to .398.

These were the glory days of the old Pacific Coast League. The rivalries were intense, the ballparks drew large, enthusiastic crowds, and the quality of play, while not on the same level as the major leagues, was considered very high. Many young PCL stars went on play in the majors, while a few older major league veterans headed to the PCL to extend their careers.

For all his batting prowess, Eckhardt was a below-average fielder, at best, which may partially explain why he could never stick in the major leagues. And while it is true that he began his career at a relatively advanced age, his one-dimensional (some would say stubborn) approach at the plate definitely held him back. Big league baseball in the 1930’s, when Eckhardt was in his prime, was known for its proliferation of offense. Most teams were well-stocked with hitters, and had little use for a left-handed-hitting corner outfielder with no power. Eckhardt rarely pulled the ball, instead preferring to dunk everything into left field. He was a quick study for major league pitchers; it didn’t take them long to discover that they could get him out by inducing him to chop the ball into the ground.

Despite his deficiencies at the big league level, Ox Eckhardt remains one of the great minor league hitters ever. He is a member of the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame, as well as the Texas League Hall of Fame. And his lifetime professional batting average of .365 is a record that should stand for the ages.