The Worst Bat Anyone Ever Tolerated

The Worst Bat Anyone Ever Tolerated (1911)

Bill Bergen caught his last big league game on this day and finished eleven seasons hitting .170, still the lowest career average in history for anyone with that many trips to the plate. In 1909 he hit .139, the worst season a batting title qualifier has ever managed, and went more than forty straight at bats without a hit. Brooklyn kept writing him into the lineup anyway, because nobody threw out runners like he did. The glove has always been able to carry a man further than the bat.

Down Three Games to One, and Up Again (1935)

The Crawfords and the New York Cubans went the full seven for the Negro National League title, and the finale was played under the lights in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh had been one out from elimination the night before and scored four in the ninth to survive. In the eighth inning of Game Seven, Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston went back to back, Charleston's his third homer of the series at age 38. The Cubans got within a run before the last out. The team people call the greatest in Negro Leagues history had to claw for it.

One Inch of Wall (1973)

Tied with Pittsburgh in the 13th at Shea, Dave Augustine hit a ball everybody in the park read as a home run. It struck the very top of the wall, stayed fair, and dropped into Cleon Jones's glove. The relay came home in time to tag the runner out, New York won it in the bottom half, and a team that had been buried in August played in Game Seven of the World Series.

The Chase Ends Quietly (1980)

George Brett woke up hitting .39950, which the scoreboards rounded up to .400 and the record keepers did not. He went 0 for 4 against Oakland and never got near it again. He finished at .390, the highest average anyone had posted since 1941, and it stood until Tony Gwynn hit .394 in 1994. Nobody tells you which one was the last good swing.