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Battling Backstop Bats In The Post-Season

Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 10, 2007

So, tonight, I'm watching a replay of Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS on the YES Network, and I noticed that both Thurman Munson and Buck Martinez had three hits in the game.  That made me wonder:  How many times have catchers on both teams had 3+ hits in the same post-season game?

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Game Finder for Post-Season Games, I was able to run a list of all post-season games where a catcher had 3+ hits in the contest.

From there, I was able to see that there have only been three times in baseball history where catchers on both teams had 3+ hits in the same post-season game:

Buck Martinez and Thurman Munson in Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS

Rich Gedman and Bob Boone in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS

Rich Gedman and Gary Carter in Game 4 of the 1986 World Series

So, while Munson and Martinez were not the only ones to do this, they were the first pair to ever reach this feat.

Amazing that it took so long to happen - and that it's happened so few times - when you consider how many post-season games have been played in big league history.

3 Responses to “Battling Backstop Bats In The Post-Season”

  1. Stat of the Day » 1996 ALDS TEX vs NYY Says:

    [...] Steve’s lead, let’s take a quick look at some historical post-season happenings, specifically the 1996 AL [...]

  2. statboy Says:

    I was watching the game on YES too. What was up with Keith Jackson pronouncing Buck Martinez's last name "mar-tin-ezz"?

  3. Steve Lombardi Says:

    They said that the Royals had told them to say it that way. Strange, I agree.