Late Bloomers: George Watkins

This should go without saying, but it’s really hard to hit .373 in the big leagues. It’s even harder when you’re not an all-time legend of the game.

In baseball history, there have only been 119 individual seasons in which a player got at least 400 plate appearances and batted .373 or better. There have been almost 3 times as many no-hitters thrown or cycles hit for than there have been .373 seasons. It’s more common to see a runner steal 70 bases in a season, or a pitcher win 30 games.

Of those 119 seasons, exactly 100 were accomplished by a current member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. I won’t get into all of the King Kellys and Fred Clarkes who managed the feat just once, but here are the 20 Hall of Famers who did it at least twice:

• 11 times - Ty Cobb

• 7 times - Rogers Hornsby

• 6 times - Tris Speaker and Ed Delahanty

• 5 times - Babe Ruth, Jesse Burkett, and Willie Keeler

• 4 times - Al Simmons and Harry Heilmann

• 3 times - Lou Gehrig, Nap Lajoie, and Billy Hamilton

• 2 times - Ted Williams, Paul Waner, Heinie Manush, Ben Taylor, George Sisler, Hughie Jennings, Sam Thompson, Dan Brouthers

That leaves just 19 individual seasons at .373 or better that were accomplished by non-Hall of Famers. That’s a bit misleading, though, because 10 of those 19 seasons were produced by just 4 players, all of whom had very strong cases to make the Hall of Fame, too.

• 4 times - Joe Jackson

• 2 times - Babe Herman, Lefty O’Doul, and Pete Browning