List Of Lifetime Major League Baseball Hit Leaders Through History
This list of lifetime MLB hit leaders displays a chronology of the annual top ten leaders in lifetime base hits in Major League Baseball from 1876 through 2011.
The table assists in identifying the most significant players in each era, and helps to understand the importance of many stars of the past. Before Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record for career hits, for example, Tris Speaker, Stan Musial and Hank Aaron had each reached the number two spot in succession.
It is also quite valuable to identify the leaders during the 19th century, when seasons were shorter (usually from 60 to 130 games); while nearly 250 players have now reached the 2,000-hit plateau, barely a dozen had done so by the end of the 19th century.
In the era before 1893, when the distance between the pitcher and home plate was extended from 45 feet to 60 feet, long-neglected stars Deacon White and Paul Hines were mainstays among the top five, along with Cap Anson and Jim O'Rourke.
This chart uses the hit totals which are officially recognized by Major League Baseball, as maintained and provided by the Elias Sports Bureau; they are derived from the annual official league statistics, even when those totals have been proven by later research to be in error. Particularly with regard to players from before 1920, these totals often differ from those used by ESPN, CNN/Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, the Baseball-Reference website, or by MLB's two longtime official encyclopedias, The Baseball Encyclopedia and Total Baseball. In fact, they are also not the same as the historical totals displayed on MLB's official website.
While the specific totals may vary between sources, and slight variations in the order may result, the leaders would overwhelmingly be the same regardless of which set of numbers is used; with the exception of 1904, in no year does more than one player drop out of the top 10 when a different version of the statistics is employed. Furthermore, this table accurately represents what observers of each era believed to be true.
Read more about List Of Lifetime Major League Baseball Hit Leaders Through History: 1876-1900, 1901-1960, 1961–2012
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, lifetime, major, league, baseball, hit, leaders and/or history:
“I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list.”
—Linda Pastan (b. 1932)
“Lastly, his tomb
Shall list and founder in the troughs of grass
And none shall speak his name.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.”
—Robert Bolt (1924–1995)
“We’re the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C’mon be a glorified wreck like me.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Major Bagley: So they really got the Arizona.
Captain Quincannon: Yes, sir. Hickham Field was hit just as bad as Pearl Harbor, lot of fifth column work.
Major Bagley: I’ve studied all the wars in history, gentlemen, and I’ve never come across any dirty treachery like that.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
“Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation’s leaders wouldn’t know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)