Top 7: Random Baseball Records

As the Top 7 likes to do every once in awhile, and due to it being a rather dead time of year, it’s time for another look into the Society for American Baseball Research record book to find some underrated records that are either less publicized than they should be, or very, very unlikely to be broken any time soon. Usually the Top 7 will take a look at the sure-to-be-overpaid players of the offseason, but it was kind of hard to come up with 7 this year—the available players are pretty weak.

Onto the list, and Merry Christmas!

7. Most Runs in a Game, One Player
Did they used to play with five batters on a team back in the 1800s or something? Seven runs in a game is the all-time record, in 1886. Two players had six in the same game in 1887. They were playing wiffle ball in the 1800s.

6. Hit Batters in a Season
Kerry Wood should be proud. He hit 21 batters in 2003, making it one of only two appearances in the top 60 by a player after 1911. Good Lord they used to hit a lot of batters. Phil Knell hit 54 guys in 1891. If that happened nowadays, the media would be calling for a lifetime suspension, and may even get it.

One wonders how many guys Duke Simpson hit in Major League. I doubt that it was 54. Bonus: there was a pitch named Phenomenal Smith who pitched for Baltimore in 1888. It’s too bad that there isn’t a word to describe how awesome that name is.

5. 40 Homers in a Season, Fewer than 200 in a Career
For all of the talk about fluke seasons, you come to realize that there just aren’t that many to go around. Just THREE players are on this list. Ryan Ludwick, it should be noted, did not hit 40 homers during his potentially fluke 2008 season. If you hit 40 homers in a season, it means you’re pretty good and you’re going to hit some more.

With that in mind, steroids or not, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Mark McGwire ended up hitting 70 home runs in a season after he crushed 49 in his first season in the majors.###MORE###

4. Career games with a homer in a 1-0 game
In many sports, you hear about guys “single-handedly” providing all of the offense. That’s not necessarily true. In football, basketball, and hockey, it’s nearly impossible to do so—someone has to help you somewhere. Baseball literally allows this happen. Ted Williams holds this record with 5 times providing all of the offense in a game that his team won by 1.

Gary Sheffield did it three times in 2001, which has to be the highest season total to career record ratio ever—that’s like someone hitting 450 home runs or getting 2,400 hits in a season.

3. .300 BA, 300 home runs
Just 24 players are on this list, though Albert Pujols is part of that now (book was published in 2007). This seems like a record that they would make a bigger deal out of, it’s just as select of company as hitting 500 home runs is now. I guess having a round number that actually occurs makes the moment a little better—cheering on a guy to go 1 for 3 in his final game so his average is kept above .300 doesn’t make for nearly as good of a drama.

2. Inside the Park Homers, Season
Sam Crawford must have been Usian Bolt before Usian Bolt. Anytime records come up that have to do with triples or inside the parkers, he seems to be at or near the top every time. It could also be that he played in parks with 500-foot fences too. Whatever the case, he had 12 inside-the-parkers in 1901. It’s big baseball news now if it happens once.

1. Cy Young
One could argue that it’s lame to name awards after players, but it’s hard to argue that the Cy Young Award is aptly named, since Cy set records that don’t even seem possible or real nowadays. Cy Young threw 7,356 innings in his career. Justin Verlander led the majors last year with 240 innings. He would have to do that for 31 years to break the record.

Hell, there is over 1,400 innings separating Young from the #2 guy on the all-time list, which would rank in the top 60 amongst active players. It’s safe to say that this record isn’t falling until the robots take over.

And how about wins? Cy Young won 511 games. Tom Glavine, the active leader with 305 victories, would only need to average 20 wins a season until he was 53 years old to equal the record. The 94 wins separating Young from Walter Johnson, the #2 guy, would rank 50th among current major leaguers, tied with Jason Marquis.

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