Top 10 most surprising players who never won a batting title

Baseball Digest, Feb, 2003 by Tim Olsen

Despite finishing their careers with high lifetime batting averages, stars such as Eddie Collins and Joe Jackson never led the league in hitting

AS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS completed the 2002 season, some familiar names were perched at the top of the American and National League lists of batting average leaders. Larry Walker. Todd Helton. Ichiro Suzuki. Bernie Williams. Each of them is one of the top hitters in the majors and the owner of at least one major league batting title.

Some players are expected to compete for a batting title each year, if not win it outright. Indeed, some players made batting championships so habit-forming that hot winning a title in a given year was more of a surprise than their uncanny ability to be sitting at the top of the heap of hitters when the dust had settled at the end of a season. Think of Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn and a number of other players who battled for a batting title year after year after year.

For each Walker, Helton, Cobb and Carew, though, there are even more Piazzas, Sweeneys, Castillas and Giambis--outstanding hitters who haven't yet tasted a batting championship. There can only be one batting champion per league each year, which makes for an awful lot of also-rans each season.

Who are the also-rans? Which players, despite careers in which they excelled as hitters, surprisingly never won a batting championship? The list of career hitting leaders is littered with players who never won a batting title. A high career batting average, though, doesn't guarantee competition for league leadership. Earle Combs, a .325 career hitter, not only never wore a batting crown, he never even finished among the leaders, breaking the top five. Longevity also plays a role.

Riggs Stephenson, a career .336 hitter, never won a title either. He has the second-highest career average for a player without a batting title, but he only managed four seasons (out of 14 total) in the majors in which he accumulated 400 or more at-bats. He did have two top five finishes, but his lack of full seasons leads one to believe that he could have won a title or two with more complete years.

Giving the most weight to the number of top five finishes, career batting average, and full seasons played, we'll list the most surprising players who never won a league batting championship. Players must have at least a .300 career average and 1,500 career bits to qualify.

1 EDDIE COLLINS Career average: .333

Top Five Finishes: 10 Top Ten Finishes: 15

The quintessential "Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride" player when it comes to batting titles, Eddie Collins was an American League top-five hitter an amazing 10 times without capturing a league batting title.

The owner of baseball's 23rd highest lifetime batting average, Collins was arguably the greatest second baseman of all time. He played his Hall of Fame career with the Philadelphia Athletics (1906-1914, 1927-1930) and Chicago White Sox (1915-1926) and is the only player to hit .400 in a World Series three different years.

In the 25 years he played in the majors, he could attribute his lack of a batting crown to one man: Ty Cobb. Cobb's damage to Sam Crawford's and Joe Jackson's title hopes pale in comparison to those of Collins. The first seven times that Collins was among the top five hitters in the A.L., Cobb was the league batting champion.

It wasn't until 1920, 15 years into Collins' career, that he beat Cobb in hitting, .372 to .334. He still finished fifth in the league, though, behind George Sisler's .407. Collins also topped Cobb in 1923 and '24, although he fell short of a league batting crown each time.

2 SAM CRAWFORD Career Average: .309

Top Five Finishes: 7 Top Ten Finishes: 11

Don't be misled by the comparatively low career batting average. Crawford, a Hall of Fame outfielder mostly with the Detroit Tigers, was one of the best hitters of his era. Although he's far better known as baseball's career triples leader, with 312, Crawford also broke the top five in hitting seven separate times in his career.

The last four top fives of his career, 1907, '08, '09 and '11, Crawford didn't even lead his team in hitting, despite two league second-place finishes, a third and fourth. Ty Cobb prevented Crawford, as well as every other American League hitter, from winning a batting title in each of those years.

3 PAUL MOLITOR Career Average: .306

Top Five Finishes: 6 Top Ten Finishes: 11

Despite a considerably lower lifetime average and one less top-five batting finish, Molitor ranks just ahead of Joe Jackson due to their disparity in longevity.

While Jackson was banished from major league baseball prematurely, Molitor had 19 chances in which to win a title, coming up short each time.

A versatile player who manned a number of different positions for three American League teams, Molitor is the only player to lead the league in hits for three different teams when he paced the A.L. in safeties for the Brewers in 1991, Blue Jays in 1993 and Twins in 1996.

Molitor was a late bloomer in some ways, not cracking the top five in hitting for the first time until his 10th season in the majors. That started a stretch in which he reeled off six in 10 seasons, with two second-place finishes, a third, a fourth and a pair of fifths.