The astronaut walked less than 25 feet. In baseball, there is a lot of walking around, but it is certainly more than 25 feet. To honor this event I will check out the MLB leaders in walks along with a usual Kellogg's card twist.
Barry Bonds is the career leader in walks. Why? They built a short right field for him and he used some great "supplements". Barry walked over 20% of the time. His total was over 1,400 more than his father Bobby had. Intentional walks weren't tracked in earlier years, but Bonds has almost 400 more than the next player on the list, Hank Aaron.
Rickey Henderson was second. That's more amazing since he was a lead-off batter as well as the career leader in stolen bases.
Babe Ruth was third because..................................he was Babe Ruth of course. Even though he batted behind Ruth for most of his career, Lou Gehrig amassed over 1,500 walks.
Ted Williams was next with an amazing number of walks. It was a surprise for me to find out that Williams walk to At-Bat ratio of 20.8% was higher than Bonds' number. That certainly hurt his other career statistics other than OBP. Williams didn't end up in the 1972 Kellogg's All-Time Greats set - that's too bad.
A few others who are in the top ten in walks appeared on Kellogg's cards.
Joe Morgan is fifth on the list.
Carl Yastrzemski is sixth on the list.
Pete Rose is 14th.
Harmon Killebrew is 15th.
From 1969 - 1982 when Kellogg' was deciding who to include in future card sets the top three includes Morgan (1st), Yastrzemski (2nd) and Ken Singleton (3rd). Once again I'm surprised that Singleton shows up on a list. He had a much better career than I remember.
The most walks in a season during the Kellogg's era (1969 - 1982) was 148 by Jimmy Wynn. The most walks in any season is a ridiculous 232 by Barry Bonds.
Soon I will check out those players who refused to take a walk.
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