35+ 2B, 50+ HR & 100+ BB In A Season
Posted by Steve Lombardi on May 3, 2011
How many players had 35+ doubles, 50+ homeruns and 100+ walks in the same season?
Here's the list -
| Rk | Player | HR | 2B | BB | Year | Age | Tm | Lg | G | PA | AB | R | H | 3B | RBI | IBB | SO | HBP | SH | SF | GDP | SB | CS | Pos | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Babe Ruth | 59 | 44 | 145 | 1921 | 26 | NYY | AL | 152 | 693 | 540 | 177 | 204 | 16 | 171 | 0 | 81 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 13 | .378 | .512 | .846 | 1.359 | *78/13 |
| 2 | Luis Gonzalez | 57 | 36 | 100 | 2001 | 33 | ARI | NL | 162 | 728 | 609 | 128 | 198 | 7 | 142 | 24 | 83 | 14 | 0 | 5 | 14 | 1 | 1 | .325 | .429 | .688 | 1.117 | *7 |
| 3 | Hack Wilson | 56 | 35 | 105 | 1930 | 30 | CHC | NL | 155 | 709 | 585 | 146 | 208 | 6 | 191 | 0 | 84 | 1 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | .356 | .454 | .723 | 1.177 | *8 |
| 4 | Jose Bautista | 54 | 35 | 100 | 2010 | 29 | TOR | AL | 161 | 683 | 569 | 109 | 148 | 3 | 124 | 2 | 116 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 9 | 2 | .260 | .378 | .617 | .995 | *95/3D8 |
| 5 | Babe Ruth | 54 | 36 | 150 | 1920 | 25 | NYY | AL | 142 | 616 | 458 | 158 | 172 | 9 | 137 | 0 | 80 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 14 | .376 | .532 | .847 | 1.379 | *978/31 |
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So, last season, Jose Bautista became just the 4th man in baseball history to join the "35/50/100" Club. Interesting foursome, huh? The Babe, Hack, LuGo and Joey Bats. Swell trivia question too.
May 3rd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Amazing that Ruth hit .378 and .376 in those two years. Not bad on top of everything else. Those numbers belong in a video game.
May 3rd, 2011 at 12:42 pm
And he had 16 triples? Holy Crap!
May 3rd, 2011 at 12:50 pm
A long way to go (obviosuly), but Bautista's close to being on track to join Ruth in doing this in back-to-back seasons.
Projecting to 159 games (Jose missed 3 games earlier to attend to family matters), he's currently on a 32/57/190 pace. But, considering his BA so far this year is almost 100 points higher than 2010, it's doubtful to me he can keep up the 2B and HR counting pace, especially with all the walks he's drawing.
May 3rd, 2011 at 1:05 pm
If you take out Babe (since he seems to be on EVERY list we can come up with - including pitching), the list is not all that inspiring.
May 3rd, 2011 at 1:37 pm
I immediately thought of Albert Belle, because I knew he had the only 50 2B/50 HR season in history. He "only" had 70 something walks that year.
May 3rd, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Also what makes Ruth's #s so eye-popping is his walks were 50% more than the others and from what I hear, he was not the most fleet of foot.
So those 16 triples and 44 doubles are all the more striking, but imagine they were hit in some monster ball parks with huge alleys. But considering that, imagine his HR totals if he played in todays parks with relatively short fences.
May 3rd, 2011 at 1:57 pm
As a DBacks fan, I can tell you somebody tried to start the LuGo nickname for GOnzalez and he hated it and it never stuck. He's Gonzo to most everyone. . . .
The whole "1st initial 1st name,1st syllable 2nd name" nickname thing cannot go away fast enough as far as I'm concerned. A-Rod worked and it was original then but just about every single one since then sounds stupid to me. I've seen some people trying to tuen Justin Upton into J-Up and it just doesn't work. . . . .
May 3rd, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Really, they asked Hack to bunt 18 times? Talk about taking the bat out of his hands... 200 RBI out the window!
May 3rd, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Gehrig missed by 1 HR in two different seasons.
May 3rd, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Its hard to get all those events into a 600 PA season. Most of the time they don't fit. Other than Ruth's two crazy-high SLG seasons, the BB totals are all just above 100.
@8
I think there's a confusion between SH and SF in the 1920s NL. For a while, these two numbers were not kept separately. See the attached game where Wilson hits 2 HR and 2 SH:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN193008300.shtml
May 3rd, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I was aware of the other numbers but never realized The Babe tried to steal so often, 58 attempts in 2 years and 27 CS which was about his OBP...
May 3rd, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Babe played 1920 and 1921 at the bathtub shaped Polo Grounds. If you don't know the dimensions: LF line 279 (a 23' overhang meant 256 to the upper deck), LCF 447, CF listed as 483 to the clubhouse. The bleachers were probably 435. 440 to RCF, 258 down the RF line.
May 3rd, 2011 at 3:00 pm
http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball/PoloGrounds.html
May 3rd, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Jimmy Foxx hit 33 doubles both times he cleared 50 HRs
May 3rd, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Bonds came sort of close in '93, '00, '01, and '02.
May 3rd, 2011 at 3:59 pm
@6, Duke -- Ruth also played a few years in a park whose dimensions seemed almost custom-made for him -- what was that place called, again? 🙂
But seriously, the AL parks during Ruth's career were, broadly speaking, no deeper than today's parks. Yes, Comiskey and Griffith Stadium (WASH) were tough, but Ruth's own home parks (Polo Grounds & whatchamacallit) were friendly to him, as were Shibe Park in Philly, Sportsmans Park in St. Louis, and Navin Field in Detroit.
Ruth owned Shibe Park. For the years we can check, Ruth hit 68 HRs in 158 games at Shibe Park. From 1921-30, he hit 48 HRs in 97 games there.
How did Shibe Park play overall? Not necessarily great for batting average, but the fences were reachable. In 1929-30 combined, there were 244 HRs in the A's home games, 160 in their road games -- a ratio of more than 3 to 2.
May 3rd, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I`m looking at a chart of the dimensions of Yankee Stadium during Ruth`s career.Center field is 490ft,down the right field line is only 296ft.,but staight away right is 375ft. and quickly angles out to 429ft. in the power alley in right center.So much for "custom-made".He hit more homers on the road than at home.Book titled THE YEAR BABE RUTH HIT 104 HOMERS should be required reading for all baseball fans.The fact that Ruth hit over 136 career triples and Gehrig hit 20 one season(1927) should be at least a clue that Yankee Stadium was no home run haven-at times quite the contrary!
May 3rd, 2011 at 5:00 pm
@16 "But seriously, the AL parks during Ruth's career were, broadly speaking, no deeper than today's parks. "
As Brian Wells just pointed out, this isn't really true, especially when it comes to center field. Most parks back then were about 100 feet deeper to center than they are now.
Shibe Park, as you mentioned, was ok right down the line at 340 but it quickly went out and by the time you got to center it was between 468 and 505 feet away. 468 after 1930 and 505 before.
May 3rd, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Just for fun I checked this book to see how many homers Ruth hit that traveled 400 feet or more.The number came to 449.Close to 50 of those were 500 feet or more!Ruth hit 347 homers at home,but hit 367 on the road.Ruth apparently didn`t need "custom-made"park.Using a ball park ideal of 330ft down the lines,375ft. power alleys,and 405ft. to center Ruth would have ended up with around 1,100 homers.He also lost at least 50-75 homers to an archaic foul ball rule that was in effect from 1909 through 1930.
May 3rd, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Albert Belle not only was the only player to hit 50 doubles and 50 Hrs in a yr..he also was the only player to average 40 doubles and 40 Hr's in a career! But what I believe is astonishing is that Hank Greenberg was the only man to ever average 90 x-tra base hits in a career...that's some power!
May 3rd, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Amazing how much lower Bautista's percentages are than the other three, especially the average.
May 3rd, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Brian-
What was the "archaic foul ball rule"? Was that the one where a ball that wrapped around the poll was considered foul? Did Ruth play during the time where what we now call ground rule doubles were considered HRs? Also, how many of Ruth's HRs were of the inside-the-park variety? Thanks.
May 3rd, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Jose Bautista slept the wrong way in a NY hotel on the weekend and "cricked" his neck so badly that he needed an MRI today and is missing the whole Tampa Bay series!
Conspiracy theory anyone?
How much did it cost the Yankees to buy that hotel maid to change the angle of his pillow?
Seriously, Jose will exceed the BB total again this year (obviously) but without protection in the lineup has no chance at duplicating his 2B and HR totals of last year.
May 3rd, 2011 at 11:16 pm
@ 11 Page-up
If you think Ruth's CS were bad, imagine this, he got thrown out trying to steal second with two out in the 9th...... in the World Series clincher.
I don't think there is a worse play in baseball history.
But true to Ruth form, if there was something that needed to be done the most or the best, Ruth was there to accommodate.
But seriously, how do you end an entire baseball season trying to steal second with the # 4 hitter up.
May 4th, 2011 at 6:07 am
Ruth t justified the attempt by saying "I wasn't doing the team any good on first." because the Yankees hadn't scored, and no Yankee had gotten beyoind first the entire game. No the worst play ever IMHO
May 4th, 2011 at 9:18 am
So what is the worst - informal vote?
May 4th, 2011 at 10:25 am
@18/ Rich Says: "...Most parks back then were about 100 feet deeper to center than they are now..."
Rich, up until the mid-30s, teams would frequently place the 'overflow" attendance from a sold-out game behind ropes in the deepest outfield, so there was a need for extremely deep center field dimensions to accomodate fans.
May 4th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
You can get some good trivia questions by combining two or more achievement levels in a season. For example?
Who is the only person to hit at least 20 triples and at least 50 doubles in a season? [Stan Musial, 1946, and he barely made both qualifiers.]
Who is the only person to hit 20 triples, 30 HR and 40 doubles in a season?
[Jim Bottomley, 1928, with 20/31/42.]
May 6th, 2011 at 11:17 am
@19 and @22
The foul ball rule was active through 1919, not 1930. Oh, and since you asked, Ruth never had a ground-rule HR. Not sure about IPHR, though his triples totals indicate he may have had one or two during 1920-1922.
May 6th, 2011 at 11:18 am
@myself
Ruth never lost a HR to that foul-ball rule anyway, so it doesn't matter.
May 7th, 2011 at 3:21 am
Probably nobody reading this thread anymore, but nonetheless:
(1) I stand corrected about the dimensions of certain AL parks, and clearly I overstated the degree to which Yankee Stadium was "custom made" for Ruth. I was actually going for a sort of pun there, on "The House That Ruth Built," but I should have just stuck with facts.
(2) As to the rest of the claims -- the count of Ruth's 400-ft. and 500-ft. HRs, estimates of how many HRs Ruth would have hit in some abstract park -- can we please know the source of this information? I am particularly interested in the source of HR-distance measurements, as many such things that have been passed down through the common history of the game -- e.g., Mantle's "565-foot HR" out of Griffith Stadium -- have been shown to be no more than rough estimates.
Also, the Ruth defenders have so far made a lot of points about depth of power alleys and straight-away CF, but have not commented on the extremely reachable down-the-line dimensions of parks like the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium.
-- For the 3 years Ruth played in the Polo Grounds, the Yankees hit a combined 207 HRs at home, 137 on the road. Yankee pitchers allowed 118 HRs at home, 54 away. Combined totals for Yankee games 1920-22: 325 HRs at home, 191 on the road. That's 70% more HRs in their home games than their road games.
-- For the first 2 years of Yankee Stadium, there were 215 HRs in Yankee home games, 115 in their home games. That's 87% more HRs at home.
Whatever the dimensions were, that's a hell of a lot more HRs in Yankee home games for those 5 years than in their road games.