One of the things I love about baseball is it’s rich history. Mrs.Chemgod went to Barnes and Noble over the weekend and purchased a book entitled “The Big Book of Baseball Brainteasers” by Dom Forker, Robert Obojski, and Wayne Stewart. Tales of Past Wax will be short funny stories about baseball from a time when many of us weren’t around. I think it’s important to celebrate the history of baseball, and to enjoy some of it’s very funny stories. This is taken directly from the book:
Larry Lajoie’s 1901 Batting Average Zooms from 0.401 to 0.422
Larry Lajoie, the great fielding, hard-hitting second baseman who played in the majors for 21 years (from 1896 to 1916), won the American League batting crown in 1901 with a purported 0.401 average while with the Philadelphia Athletics.
Of course, a 0.401 average for a full season is super, but in reality Lajoie did even better. Some 50-odd years later statisticians, led by eagle-eyed Cliff Kachline, discovered that through mistakes in addition, Lajoie was shortchanged by nine hits. He actually piled up 229 base hits, including 48 doubles, 13 triples, and a league leading 14 homers, and that boosted his average by 21 points, from 0.401 to 0.422. That 0.422 still stands as the highest seasonal average by an American Leaguer (Ty Cobb’s 0.420 in 1911 and George Sisler’s 0.420 in 1922 now rank second.)
After the conclusion of the 1901 season, league statisticians just didn’t add up Lajoie’s hit total correctly-his at bats remained the same at 543, and nine additional base hits raised his lifetime big league average by one point, from 0.338 to 0.339.
Larry Lajoie – His nickname was “Nap”, his numbers have since increased further, 232 hits in 544 at bats to give him a 0.426 average. Of his 21 seasons, 9 were where he hit 0.360 or better. He led the league in batting average 5 times. He was the fourth player in the history of baseball to hit the Triple Crown (1901), and the first to do it in the 1900s. He was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1937 and passed away in 1959. His cards from the 1909 – 1916 sets typically run into the 100 dollar region. Below are three examples of his cards.
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That is awesome. I wonder if nine more hits would have helped him contract negotiations the following year?
Also, for the old-schooler in you, I’m giving away a T206 Cy Seymour on my blog. Check it out if you are interested, sorry to leave this in the comment but didn’t see your email:http://crawfordcards.blogspot.com/2009/06/great-t206-cy-seymour-giveaway.html
He was a great player. Alas, I think the only way I’ll get one of his cards in my collection is by getting one of the later cards (like a 60 or 61 Fleer) or a reprint.
I’m a huge Nap Lajoie fan. My grandpa was a Indians fan and passed a T206 (bat off shoulder) on to me when he passed away. Here’s another interesting tidbit about him from Wikipedia regarding his hatred with Ty Cobb:
Rivalry with Ty Cobb
Main article: 1910 Chalmers Award
The Lajoie-Cobb rivalry reached a peak in 1910, when the Chalmers Auto Company promised a car to the batting leader (and MVP) that year. Cobb took the final two games of the 1910 season off, confident that his average was high enough to win the AL batting title unless Lajoie had a near-perfect final day.
Lajoie, a far more popular player than Cobb, was allowed by the opposing St. Louis Browns to go 8-for-8 in a season-ending doubleheader. After a “sun-hindered” fly ball went for a triple and another batted ball landed for a cleanly hit single, Lajoie had five subsequent “hits” – bunt singles dropped in front of third baseman Red Corriden, who was playing closer to shallow left field on orders of manager Jack O’Connor. Lajoie also laid down a sixth bunt that was muffed for an error–officially giving him a hitless at-bat and dropping his average. O’Connor and coach Harry Howell then offered a new wardrobe to the official scorer, a woman, if she changed it to a hit. She refused, and the resulting uproar resulted in O’Connor and Howell being kicked out of baseball for life.
Nap Lajoie on a 1911 American Tobacco Company baseball card.As it turns out, Lajoie’s average is not the only one tainted by controversy; Cobb’s average might have been inflated by counting a game twice in his statistics when one day he went 2-for-3, as researchers discovered 70 years later. In the end, the Chalmers Auto Company avoided taking sides in the dispute by awarding cars to both Cobb and Lajoie for their thrilling batting race