Quiz – some time with the 09ers (stumped)

11 Replies

As a companion to the current Circle of Greats election, here are some of the players featured on this week’s ballot.

They didn’t strike the mother lode like the famous 49ers, but these are the only players born in 1909 to have a particular season batting feat that at least their mothers could be proud of. What is it?

Rk Player
1 Mel Ott
2 Stan Hack
3 Billy Herman
4 Jo-Jo White
5 Gene Moore
6 Tom Winsett
7 Skeeter Webb
8 Otto Bluege
9 Chile Gomez
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/5/2014.

This was a tough one. The solution is all of these players were born in 1909 and had a season of 100+ games played with twice as many walks as doubles and more strikeouts than RBI. More after the jump.

Here are those seasons.

Rk Player ▴ SO RBI BB 2B G Year Age Tm Lg PA R H 3B HR BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Billy Herman 43 41 67 30 144 1941 31 TOT NL 649 81 163 5 3 .285 .361 .371 .732 *4
2 Chile Gomez 32 28 14 4 108 1936 27 PHI NL 358 24 77 1 0 .232 .265 .250 .515 *46
3 Gene Moore 50 39 40 13 107 1939 29 BRO NL 351 45 69 6 3 .225 .315 .337 .652 *9H/783
4 Gene Moore 73 70 61 29 148 1937 27 BSN NL 631 88 159 10 16 .283 .358 .456 .814 *9
5 Jo-Jo White 34 26 50 6 110 1944 35 TOT ML 407 39 79 2 1 .224 .326 .261 .587 *987H/6
6 Jo-Jo White 42 32 68 13 114 1935 26 DET AL 483 82 99 12 2 .240 .348 .345 .693 *8H
7 Jo-Jo White 51 30 61 17 139 1943 34 PHA AL 577 69 124 7 1 .248 .335 .316 .651 *8/H7
8 Mel Ott 48 47 95 12 125 1943 34 NYG NL 485 65 89 2 18 .234 .391 .418 .810 *9H/5
9 Otto Bluege 29 18 26 6 108 1933 23 CIN NL 324 17 62 2 0 .213 .278 .247 .525 *64/H5
10 Skeeter Webb 35 21 30 12 118 1945 35 DET AL 449 43 81 2 0 .199 .254 .238 .492 *64/H
11 Stan Hack 40 39 94 36 140 1942 32 CHC NL 656 91 166 3 6 .300 .402 .409 .811 *5/H
12 Stan Hack 42 21 45 16 111 1934 24 CHC NL 458 54 116 6 1 .289 .363 .366 .729 *5/H
13 Tom Winsett 64 42 45 15 118 1937 27 BRO NL 400 32 83 5 5 .237 .329 .351 .681 *7H/81
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/6/2014.

Mostly non-descript seasons (Ott’s in particular, especially relative to his norm). Hard to imagine just 21 RBI in 458 PA for Hack for a top-flight Cubs team in 1934. His 39 RBI from 45 XBH in 1942 is also a head-scratcher (Herman’s similar 41 RBI from 38 XBH the year before was mostly for the pennant-winning Dodgers, as the Cubs had dealt him there at the beginning of May).

11 thoughts on “Quiz – some time with the 09ers (stumped)”

    1. Doug Post author

      Surprisingly, only other Mexican-born player named Gomez – 1970s/80s shortstop Luis.

      Chile and Luis both played for the Senators/Twins and both hit under .200 doing so.

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    1. mosc

      I was also looking at avoiding HBP’s or lots of SF/SB’s or something that a Mother might approve of but got nothing.

      Reply ↓
    2. Doug Post author

      Don’t get hung up on the “mother” angle. That probably isn’t going to lead you anywhere useful.

      BTW, these are the players born in 1909 who hit a Mother’s Day home run.

      Player	        Date	        Weekday	Tm	Opp	Rslt
Mel Ott	        1945-05-13 (2)	1	NYG	STL	L 5-6
Mel Ott	        1938-05-08	1	NYG	CHC	W 4-2
Mel Ott	        1929-05-12	1	NYG	CHC	T 6-6
Pinky Higgins	1940-05-12	1	DET	CHW	L 3-4
Billy Herman	1940-05-12	1	CHC	PIT	W 7-5
Ernie Koy	1942-05-10 (2)	1	PHI	BSN	W 4-3
Bucky Walters	1934-05-13	1	BOS	CHW	W 14-2

      If you’re curious, the Higgins home run was hit off “Sunday” Teddy Lyons, but not the one by Walters.

      Reply ↓
  3. brp

    Without even checking all the players – Bluege, Gomez, Webb and Winsett were all pretty awful batters; Bluege essentially just played 1 season, so it’s in there somewhere. I haven’t a clue.

    Reply ↓
  4. Richard Chester

    They all had a season of 0 batting runs or fewer, fewer than 6 HR, more than 100 PA and were position players, but so were 12 others.

    Reply ↓
  7. Doug Post author

    Admittedly this one was not easy.

    The trick to solving this one was the three players (Winsett, Bluege, Gomez) that you pretty much knew which season was the one of interest. While all of those seasons were unimpressive, probably the least unimpressive number on the stat line for Winsett and Bluege was their number of walks. Thus, all of these players had a season with twice as many walks as doubles. To cull the list, I added a second criterion of more strikeouts than RBI, a combination that the best players in the group (Ott, Hack, Herman) accomplished only rarely, and usually barely so.

    Reply ↓

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