Four hits in a major-league debut
Posted by Andy on May 3, 2010
Yesterday, Wilson Ramos of the Twins appeared in his first career game and had four hits. Here are all the guys in history to do that (1920-1939 and 1952-2010):
| Player | Date ▾ | Tm | Opp | Rslt | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BOP | Pos. Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wilson Ramos | 2010-05-02 | MIN | CLE | W 8-3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | C |
| Derrick Gibson | 1998-09-08 | COL | FLA | W 11-10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 7 | LF |
| Delino DeShields | 1990-04-09 | MON | STL | L 5-6 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2B |
| Bill Bean | 1987-04-25 | DET | KCR | W 13-2 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | LF |
| Kirby Puckett | 1984-05-08 | MIN | CAL | W 5-0 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | CF |
| Ted Cox | 1977-09-18 | BOS | BAL | W 10-4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | DH |
| Mack Jones | 1961-07-13 | MLN | STL | W 6-3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | CF |
| Willie McCovey | 1959-07-30 | SFG | PHI | W 7-2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1B |
| Spook Jacobs | 1954-04-13 | PHA | BOS | W 6-4 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2B |
| Cecil Travis | 1933-05-16 | WSH | CLE | W 11-10 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3B |
| Russ Van Atta | 1933-04-25 | NYY | WSH | W 16-0 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | P |
| Art Shires | 1928-08-20 | CHW | BOS | W 6-4 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1B |
As one would expect with such a small sample (just one game), this is a very mixed list. For each Kirby Puckett and Willie McCovey there is a Derrick Gibson and a Spook Jacobs. Gibson finished his career with just 14 total hits, the fewest on this list.
Perhaps the most impressive is Russ Van Atta, who was a pitcher! That first season he batted .283 in 67 plate appearances.
Last year Ramos hit pretty well in AA-ball, batting .317 over 54 games. However he slugged only .454 and had a .795 OPS. Certainly he's good enough to be a backup catcher but he's not exactly the second-coming of, umm, Joe Mauer.
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Interesting to think there are no HRs on this list despite 49 hits. Statistically improbable!
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Thanks for posting this Andy.
Both ESPN and MLB are reporting that this has been done 21 times. Does anyone have any information on the other nine times this has happened? Through googling, I've been able to find baseball-almanac and baseballlibrary references to this feat being accomplished by Ray Jansen on 09-30-1910, Casey Stengel in "late 1912" and Fred Clarke on 06-30-1894.
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Happens to be part of the sample. To get to 21, there must be some more prior to 1900:
http://www.esb.com/ebbr-2006-sample.pdf
Most Hits, First Major League Game
5 Fred Clarke, NL:Lou. June 30, 1894 (1-3b)
Since 1900:
4 Ray Jansen, AL:StL. Sept. 30, 1910
Art Shires, AL:Chi. Aug. 20, 1928 (1-3b)
Russ Van Atta, AL:NY Apr. 25, 1933
Spook Jacobs, AL:Phil. Apr. 13, 1954
Ted Cox, AL:Bos. Sept. 18, 1977 (1-2b)
Kirby Puckett, AL:Minn. May 8, 1984
Billy Bean, AL:Det. Apr. 25, 1987 (2-2b)
Casey Stengel, NL:Brk. Sept. 17, 1912
Ed Freed, NL:Phil. Sept 11, 1942 (2-2b, 1-3b)
Willie McCovey, NL:SF July 30, 1959 (2-3b)
Mack Jones, NL:Mil. July 13, 1961 (1-2b)
Delino DeShields, NL:Mtl. Apr. 9, 1990 (1-2b)
Derrick Gibson, NL:Col. Sept. 8, 1998 (1-2b)
Extra-Inning Game:
5 Cecil Travis, AL:Wash. May 16, 1933 (12 inn)
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Thanks Dquinn!
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Not the next coming of Mauer? Probably not, but Ramos has similar figures to Posada at that age. Actually, Mauer's slugging was worse his last year in the minors!
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
If you look at the Van Atta game he didn't have the best game on his team. Earle Combs was 5 for 5, altough it was of course not his first game.
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
John,
Yes but Van Atta pitched a 5-hit shutout... did Combs do that? 😉
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:17 pm
McCovey is one of only three players to have 2 triples in their first game.
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Crazy that McCovey collected two triples in his first game. He didn't exactly hit many of them.
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:49 pm
A lot of interesting ballplayers on these lists, but none more so than Art "The Great" Shires. See, e.g., http://www.seamheads.com/2009/05/18/punch-drunk-the-art-shires-story/
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Ray Jansen's 4-hit game was the only (major league) game he ever played! Career OPS 1.600. He played 3rd base that day, and made 3 errors - perhaps that explains why he never got into another game.
Wikipedia says he had never played a professional game before his first and only MLB appearance. He later played a few years in the minors, but never hit .300.
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:19 pm
I wouldn't be so quick to put down Spook Jacobs. He was one of the best players in Cuba in the 1950's and spent a great deal of his minor league career in the Brooklyn Dodgers system stuck behind Jackie Robinson until he was signed by the A's at 28. Jacobs was another victim of the reserve clause. He was a better player than his ML stats show.
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Mike--sorry, I wasn't trying to put Jacobs down--I was just remarking on his final ML stats. Thanks for the background info on his career.
May 3rd, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I don't get to too many games, especially minor league games, but in a doubleheader I saw in Trenton on August 29 against New Britain, two Twins farmhands who appeared that night have had Major League debuts this season that have occasioned entries in this blog - first Luke Hughes and now Wilson Ramos.
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:28 pm
On a team with Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey batted 3rd in his first major league game. He had been pulverizing the ball in the minors, but still...
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Batter's Box Interactive Magazine ("Baseball from a Canadian Perspective") has published a brief followup to this item (thanks, Lee!) ... The Four-Hit Wonders.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:12 am
With his 3 hits tonight Ramos joins Coaker Triplett as the only 2 players in the PI era with 7 total hits in their first 2 career games. In 1938 Triplett went 9 for his first 14 and then 0 for his next 22 to finish his season.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
By no means am I predicting a Hall of Fame career for Ramos, although that would certainly be fun for me being a Minnesota fan and following Mauer with those hopes nowadays. However; furthermore, taking from Andy's (original poster) and DQuinn's (follow up) lists, as I'm sure most of you have made the connection, here is the list of the Hall of Famers who had 4+ hits in their MLB debuts. Little did they know what they would accomplish.
Kirby Puckett
Willie McCovey
Fred Clarke
Casey Stengel
An interesting thing is Stengel did not necessarily put up HoF caliber numbers as a player, although he was a decent player in the era in which he played. He inconsistently appeared on the top ten leader board for several scattered hitting categories throughout his seasoned career, but his biggest feats seemed to be recognized when he went into the HoF as a manager of 25 years (post-playing years), 7 of them coaching the Yankees to World Series Championships!
As a player:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stengca01.shtml
As a manager:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/stengca01.shtml
Does anyone have a list of the Hall of Famers who accomplished other common feats in their debut? Like hit a HR, pitched a shutout, or other hitting and pitching feats.....