The Underappreciated Hall-of-Famer
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by user The shark
Can a Hall-of-Famer be underrated? Or under appreciated? I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but I believe that some guys in MLB history, or more specifically, the Hall of Fame, are over-hyped. The flip side of that coin, is that some of the best players in the history of the game are shrouded in obscurity, either because of when they played, where they played, or who they played with.
Suppose I were to tell you the following: There's a player in the Baseball Hall-of-Fame who won an MVP Award, and a Triple Crown. He's one of only twelve players to hit four home runs in a single game. He hit for the cycle twice in his career, and he had two 26-game hitting streaks in the same season.
Then suppose I went on to tell you that this player led his league in home runs four times, extra-base hits four times, total bases four times, RBI three times, runs three times, hits twice, doubles twice, and batting average, triples, and stolen bases once each. What name would pop to mind? Babe Ruth? Lou Gehrig? Jimmie Foxx?
The identity of the player who owns the above-stated accomplishments is none other than Philadelphia Phillies' right-fielder, Chuck Klein.
Klein played from 1928 to 1944. Among his peers in MLB at that time were Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Joe Cronin, Mel Ott, Al Simmons, Hack Wilson, Hank Greenberg, and Bill Terry to name a few. And at his best, Klein was every bit the player as any of those guys. From 1929 to 1933, Klein had one of the best (if not the best) 5-year stretches ever seen. I have listed his stats below (National League leader in bold).
| YEAR | AT BAT | RUNS | HITS | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BASES | XBH* | AVG | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | 616 | 126 | 219 | 45 | 6 | 43 | 145 | 405 | 94 | .356 | .657 |
| 1930 | 648 | 158 | 250 | 59 | 8 | 40 | 170 | 445 | 107 | .386 | .687 |
| 1931 | 594 | 121 | 200 | 34 | 10 | 31 | 121 | 347 | 75 | .337 | .548 |
| 1932 | 650 | 152 | 226 | 50 | 15 | 38 | 137 | 420 | 103 | .348 | .646 |
| 1933 | 606 | 101 | 223 | 44 | 7 | 28 | 120 | 365 | 79 | .368 | .602 |
| 5 YR. TOTAL | 3114 | 658 | 1118 | 232 | 46 | 180 | 693 | 1982 | 458 | .359 | .636 |
Impressively, Klein's totals from the 1930 season are among the greatest single-season efforts in MLB history (since 1900).
Here are his single season ranks: tied for 3rd in extra-base hits (107), 4th in total bases (445), tied for 6th in hits (250), tied for 7th in doubles (59), tied for 8th in RBI (170), tied for 18th in runs (158), and tied for 35th in batting average (.386). He was the model of a productive and consistent offensive player.
What is extremely interesting about these numbers, however, is that there have only been three 5-year spans in MLB history better than Klein's 458 extra-base hits (XBH): Ruth (476 from 1920-1924), and Gehrig twice (473 from 1927-1931, and 464 from 1926-1930).
Klein's 1118 hits over that span has only been topped once: by Ichiro (1130 from 2001-2005).
And his five-year total of 1982 total bases has never been matched to this day, although Gehrig (1963 from 1927-1931) and Sammy Sosa (1951 from 1997-2001) have come the closest.
It's unfortunate that Chuck Klein was mired on mostly last and next-to-last place teams because this guy deserves a lot more credit and recognition than his legacy can ever hope to enjoy.
- SOURCE: mlb.com
Date
Sat 08/05/06, 4:55 pm EST
Thanks.