Rogers Hornsby is considered to be the best right-handed hitter that ever swung a bat. From 1920 through 1925, Rogers Hornsby averaged a .402 batting mark for the six seasons. Rogers Hornsby won a total of seven National League batting crowns, a pair of home run titles, and led the circuit four times in runs batted in, mostly while playing second base. His lifetime .358 average is the highest of any right-handed batter, and Rogers Hornsby is the only righty of the twentieth century to hit over .400 three separate times. In 1924, Rogers Hornsby hit .424; no player of the modern era has ever hit higher in one season.
Rogers Hornsby was not a well-liked individual, not that this bothered him at all. He was a compulsive gambler and may have been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. His character flaws notwithstanding, and they were many, Rogers Hornsby was so talented that he received 105 votes for the Hall of Fame- a year before he had even retired! Born in Texas in 1896, Rogers Hornsby played his first major league game in September of 1915 with the St. Louis Cardinals at the age of 19. He batted well over .300 three of his first four years in the National League, and when the lively ball age dawned in 1920, Rogers Hornsby put up some of the gaudiest numbers imaginable.
In 1920, Rogers Hornsby batted .370; it would be his lowest average of the next six years. He batted over .400 in 1922, 1924, and 1925. His .424 in 1924 was based on 227 base hits in 536 at-bats. Seven times Rogers Hornsby exceeded 200 hits in a season. Rogers Hornsby accomplished winning baseball’s Triple Crown not once, but twice. In 1922 Rogers Hornsby hit .401 with 42 homers and 152 runs knocked in to do it the first time. In 1925 he batted .403 with 39 home runs and 139 RBI, making Rogers Hornsby the first two-time Triple Crown winner and the only one ever to hit .400 during his winning season. Ted Williams is the only other player to win the Triple Crown twice.
The first NL player to hit 40 homers in a season, which he accomplished in 1922, Rogers Hornsby accumulated over 125 RBI in a year five times, and 90 or more ten times. He was named the National League’s MVP in 1925 and 1929, and as a player/manager in 1926, Rogers Hornsby led the Cardinals to a World Series victory over the Yankees in seven games. Rogers Hornsby managed a total of six different teams, but his abrasive personality and low tolerance for those who could not play the game to his satisfaction did not mix well with being a leader. Other than the racetrack, Rogers Hornsby had virtually no other interests other than baseball. “People ask me what I do in the winter when there is no baseball”, he once said. “I’ll tell you what I do. I sit and stare out the window and wait for spring.”
Rogers Hornsby was traded by the Cardinals to the Giants, from there to the Braves, and from there to the Cubs, where as a player/ manager in 1932 he led them to a pennant. He went back briefly to the Cardinals, then took over the lowly Browns where Rogers Hornsby finished his baseball career in 1937. The final totals from his 23 years in the game, seven of which saw him play in just a few games as he got older and was also managing the team, included 2,930 base hits, 301 homers, 1,584 hits, the .358 career average, and an on-base percentage of over .430. Rogers Hornsby died in 1963 from a heart attack following surgery to remove cataracts. Rogers Hornsby was so respected a hitter when a rookie pitcher once complained to umpire Bill Klem that he thought he had thrown Rogers a strike that the ump had ruled a ball, Klem replied, “Son, when you pitch a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know.”
