Quiz – some time with the 09ers (stumped) |

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).

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10 years ago

Looks like Chile Gomez was the second Mexican-born player to pay in the majors.

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Doug

Reply to RJ

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.

bluejaysstatsgeek

I was going to guess, hitting a HR on Mother’s Day, but that wouldn’t be a “season” feat.

mosc

Reply to bluejaysstatsgeek

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.

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… Read more »

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 to brp

As I say, a season only a mother could be proud of.

As a hint, the answer involves only counting stats.

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.

koma

most of them had no stolen base in their final season

oneblankspace

two of them had a season with R >= H and R > 0

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,… Read more »