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Thursday, December 24, 2015

Watching and Listening to Ken Burn's Baseball Videos - Some Good Post Ideas

I was watching a Ken Burn's video and they talked about the Messersmith-McNally decision.  Cool to see that on its anniversary last night.  Even better since I just wrote a post about it.

In the video it also mentioned that Luis Tiant got a hit in the 1975 World Series without getting a hit during the season.  I did some research using the Sean Lahman database and found out that less than 40 players have had more post-season hits than regular season hits - not counting 2015.  Getting the exact number would involve more work on my part since I'd have to weed out players who played for two teams in a season.  

From 1969 - 1982 this happened only to:


Rollie Fingers in 1973


Ken Holtzman in 1973 and 1974


Luis Tiant in 1975



Will McEnaney in 1975


Of course all of these guys were pitchers.  What made McEnaney different from the others?
First, he was an NL pitcher.  The designated hitter rule was inplemented in 1973 in the AL, so the first three guys on the list had no regular season at-bats during the years listed.

As an NL pitcher, McEnaney batted 14 times in 1975 and got no hits.  As a relief pitcher he didn't bat much.  In 269 games he had 35 plate appearances and he was 1-for-31 for an average of .032.  That's where Ryne Sandberg started out, right?  He was 1-for-1 in the World Series with a single off of Jim Willoughby.

That's a lot of games for McEnaney in just six big league seasons.  I should look up which pitcher served up his hit, but he pitched in 55 games that year.  Maybe later?  He got a single to right field off Gene Garber of the Phillies on 8-28-76.  Garber played 19 years and had 96 wins and 218 saves so that's a good guy to get your hit off.

The other three also managed to get a Kellogg's card and McEnaney didn't.

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