The players in this quiz had an unusual game accomplishment, made more unusual in the context of their careers. What is the quirky game and career feat achieved by no other retired players since 1916?
| Earl Averill |
| Bob Johnson |
| Bill Salkeld |
| Jim Hickman |
| Mike Hegan |
| Albert Hall |
| Eric Valent |
| Randy Hundley |
Hint: figuring out what HOOT means may help you solve this quiz.
Congratulations to John Autin! He correctly identified that some of these players hit for the cycle in their only 4-hit game (ergo, it Happened Only One Time). The others hit for the cycle and had a namesake with only one 4-hit game. See the comments for my mea culpa.
Well, since Valent never played in the post-season, we can eliminate any “playoff” exploits.
I noticed both Valent and Hickman have hit for the cycle in their careers (both with the Mets). Does it have anything to do with that?
Add Hundley and Salkeld to that cycle list, so that obviously has something to do with it.
You’re on to something.
Looks like they all hit for the cycle.
HOOT could mean “Homered Only One Time”……Hall only hit five in his career, none off anyone special (his cycle homer was off Jim Deshaies).
Five of those 8 had a cycle in their *only* game of 4+ hits (Hall, Hegan, Hundley, Salkeld, Valent). Hickman cycled in his *first* 4-hit game. But I got nothin’ on Averill and Johnson.
Nor on HOOT. “Had Only One Triple” doesn’t work, even on a seasonal basis.
Of course, it would help if I had the right links.
Try again. I think you’ll get it pretty quickly.
Sorry guys! I botched it. Undone by players with the same names.
John mentioned the correct answer, so I’ll give it to him.
The idea was HOOT (Happened Only One Time) meaning players who hit for the cycle in their only 4-hit game. As John identified Salkeld, Hegan, Hall, Valent and Hundley did this. I goofed on the others.
– Earl Averill Sr. hit for the cycle. His son had one 4-hit game.
– Jim Hickman of the Cubs hit for the cycle. Jim Hickman of the Robins had one 4-hit game.
– Indian Bob Johnson hit for the cycle. Bob Johnson, nephew of Ernie Banks, had one 4-hit game
No excuse, but this happens copying search results to Excel and using names to match two different lists. Sorry, again.
Credit John Nacca for nailing the cycle angle. Once he mentioned Valent’s cycle (which I, as a Mets fan, should have recalled), it was a logical progression to the fact that Valent had only one year with more than 50 PAs, and then the chips started to fall.
BTW, 5 of those 8 players had close relatives in MLB:
Earl Averill, Sr. — father of Earl Averill, Jr.
Indian Bob Johnson — brother of Roy Johnson
Randy Hundley — father of Todd Hundley
Mike Hegan — son of Jim Hegan
Bill Salkeld — grandfather of Roger Salkeld
Throw in the 2 Jim Hickmans and Albert Hall/Al Hall, and it was an accident waiting to happen. 🙂
I noticed that Bob Johnson played 13 seasons in the majors and had an OPS+ of 125 or more in each of those seasons. If I have done my work correctly he is the only player to have had a career of at least 13 seasons with 125+ OPS+ in each and every season of his career, regardless of the number of PA. BTW running the PI shows him with 12 such seasons but his home page shows 13.
That astonishing consistency earned Bob Johnson a spot on the Lou Whitaker All-Stars, of course. In 11 of those 13 years, his OPS+ was between 125 and 147; his only real outlier was a WWII year.
As I noted in his LWAS passage:
– Johnson didn’t crack the majors until age 27, then posted 13 straight years between 3.0 and 6.5 WAR, and was gone.
– Out of 141 players with at least 10 years of 3+ WAR, only Indian Bob never had a season *under* 3 WAR.
– Over his first 10 years (1933-42), Johnson ranked 3rd overall in HRs and RBI, 4th in Times on Base and Total Bases, 5th in Runs.
– 7-time All-Star, 6 years with MVP votes.
– He appeared twice on the Hall ballot, drawing less than 1% each time. But among the 18 HOF left fielders, his WAR total and rate would rank 12th and 3rd, respectively.
his only real outlier was a WWII year.
True enough, but it was also his first season playing at Fenway. His 40 doubles that year were his best total since his rookie season, and almost double the mark of his previous season in Washington. Methinks the right-hand batter turned a lot of fly outs in Griffith Stadium into green monster doubles.
Those 40 two-baggers are tied for 7th most among players aged 38+. Of the 21 batters to record 3 WAR in their final season, only Ted Williams and Barry Bonds were older than the 39 year-old Johnson.
Methinks the right-hand batter turned a lot of fly outs in Griffith Stadium into green monster doubles.
A reasonable surmise, yet the splits say otherwise, at least over his whole career. Johnson’s rate of doubles per AB was just slightly lower in Griffith than Fenway, 6.9% to 7.1%.
He did have his best overall career numbers in Fenway (OBP and OPS), but Shibe produced his best HR% and ISO. Johnson pretty much raked everywhere but Yankee Stadium.
Finished his career at age 45, for the Tijuana Potros.
Most accomplished Potro is franchise history.
4.4 career WAR per year?
That is Whitaker ages 21-36
Bob Johnson was also a victim of bad timing. Five years earlier, he’d have been part of the 2nd A’s dynasty (3 straight pennants, 2 WS titles), and might even have helped them make it 4 straight.
Five years later, he could have been with the post-WAR Red Sox, who played .613 ball over 5 years but came out with just one pennant.
On such random things turn Hall of Fame decisions.
57 WAR from Bob Johnson while only playing from age 27 to 39 is a ton. Only 31 position players have done better than that. 25 reside in Cooperstown. The others are Bonds, Rose, A-Rod, Chipper, Edgar, and Ichiro.
When we get to 1905 I’m voting for Bob Johnson.
His 57.1 WAR is tied with… Mariano Rivera.
_______
(and, not to look ahead or anything, but 1903 might be our most loaded ballot:
Gehrig
Gehringer
Hubbell
Paul Waner
Cochrane
Lazzeri
Travis Jackson
Babe the Lesser
and the guy who invented the sports
drink:
Steve Swetonic
Voomo, you might enjoy this sports page from The Daily Times of April 26, 1943, which includes a brief obituary for Jim Swetonic, brother of Steve and a minor-league player:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1996&dat=19430426&id=X6AiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bK8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5309,4044919
You’ll especially like the banner headline, but there’s other fun stuff.
2@#
I don’t know about Voomo but I sure liked the banner headline. And they were calling the “balata” ball the “deadwood” ball at the time (see column 1 of that page. And it looks like the Dodgers were the first team to go back to the unused 1942 balls.
@JA, I liked the story about the ballpark in Hartford, Connecticut where the nearest fence is two miles away in left field.
RJ @25 — I still say Clemente makes that throw on one hop.
BTW, from 1938-47, no Hartford player hit more than 15 HRs. Their yearly HR leaders hit 5, 15, 8, 13, 4, 9, 9, 6, 12 and 10.
In 1948, the legendary minor-league slugger Joe Baumann (337 HRs in 1,019 games) played in Hartford, his only documented year in the high minors. He hit just 10 HRs in 277 ABs, which probably killed his one shot at the majors. Baumann spent the next 3 years in semi-pro ball, then signed with the class-C Longhorn League, and averaged 55 HRs in the next 4 years.
The guy who hit 15 HRs for Hartford was Bama Rowell (real first name: Carvel), a good-hitting 2B whose career was chopped up by 4 years in WWII service. Some sources say that a double he hit in Ebbetts Field on May 30, 1946 (a month after this newspaper) smashed the Bulova clock, and became the inspiration for a scene in “The Natural.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087781/trivia
That double knocked out Hank Behrman and touched off a 7-run inning. Rex Barney came in and issued an IBB to load the bases, then walked 3 more in a row — the only searchable time that any Dodgers pitcher walked all of the 4+ batters he faced.
Boston’s starting SS and 3B in that game were Nanny Fernandez and Skippy Roberge. Their CF was Johnny Hopp, whose brother Harry “Hippity” Hopp played in the early NFL. In 1942, with the 0-11 Detroit Lions, Harry completed 20 of 68 passes, with 13 interceptions and no touchdowns. Ouch!
I was thinking of Lou Whitaker All-Stars the other day when looking at Matt Holliday’s stats. Holliday has been consistently good to great his whole career. Obviously he’s not done it for long enough to be considered a true LWAS, but his WAR levels for the nine years between the ages of 25-33 (his entire career minus his rookie season) are comparable to Whitaker’s in the same period:
– 39.9 WAR for Holliday vs 41.5 for Lou.
– One season of 6 WAR apiece.
– Five seasons each between 4 and 5.9 WAR.
– Three each between 2.7 and 3.9
Now the WAR brackets are somewhat cherry-picked to disguise Holliday’s two seasons of 4 WAR on the nose, and perhaps his worst seasons of 2.7 and 2.8 WAR disqualify him from the conversation (Whitaker had no seasons below 3.5 WAR in this period). But Holliday does currently meet the 27 WAR per 1000 games standard, and if he keeps up this performance for a few more years (and his Rbat has remained very consistent over the last three seasons – it’s his defense I’d be worried about) I reckon that puts him in with a shout of the LWAS squad.
RJ, Matt Holliday is certainly on the LWAS ballot. Tremendously consistent batter; in 8 of 9 qualified seasons, his OPS+ was between 137 and 151.
There’s another active guy in contention. He has 11 seasons between 3.0 and 5.9 WAR, tied for the active lead in that freak stat — but unlike Derek Jeter, this guy has no seasons of 6+ WAR, and no qualified years less than 2 WAR. Any guesses? Hint: he made a spectacle of himself in last year’s postseason.
That would be Torii Hunter (I always have to double check what the correct number or r’s and i’s are in his first name).