Thursday, January 31, 2008

First Basemen Hitting Both Ways?

This is related to the previous post about switch-hitting catchers. Given that first basemen have usually been guys who mash the ball and there haven't been all that many power-hitting switch-hitters, it perhaps makes sense there haven't been many first baseman who have hit both ways. Only twenty-four players in baseball history batted from both sides and spent over half their career games at first place. One is a Hall of Famer (Eddie Murray) and three are active players (take a guess before looking at the list).

Most Career PA by a Switch-Hitting First Baseman
  1. Eddie Murray, 12817
  2. Lu Blue, 7207
  3. David Segui, 5449
  4. Tony Clark, 4858
  5. Wes Parker, 4835
  6. Walter Holke, 4833
  7. Ripper Collins, 4205
  8. Dan McGann, 4101
  9. Mark Teixeira, 3246
  10. Todd Benzinger, 3106
  11. Candy LaChance, 2395
  12. Johnny Neun, 1083
  13. Myron Grimshaw, 979
  14. Orestes Destrade, 866
  15. Chuck Stevens, 844
  16. Kendry Morales, 341
  17. Joe Mack, 303
  18. Burt Hart, 233
  19. Dick Kauffman, 148
  20. Drew Denson, 44
  21. Bert Graham, 27
  22. John Smith, 17
  23. Sap Randall, 15
  24. Ron Allen, 14
Tony Clark is almost halfway to the home run record among switch-hitting first baseman (he has 244; Murray had 504). I didn't realize he even had that many. Teixeira is third with 170 career homers.

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