A breed of hitter now common in baseball had its origins among a few wartime players and started to become more common in the 1950s and 1960s. This quiz identifies these pioneers and asks what was the career accomplishment that only they achieved among players last active more than 50 years ago (in 1966 or earlier).
You’d think it has something to do with strikeouts, but Mantle struck out more often than Cerv, and he’s not on the list.
It does have something to do with strikeouts.
Mantle was last active in 1968 so he would not qualify for this group.
Looks like no takers on this one, so here’s the solution.
All of these players recorded extra bases on at least 35% of their hits, including 100 home runs. But, these are the first such players to also have more career strikeouts than RBI. The number of such retired players has grown from these original 10 to number 239 today.