May 5 2008 Fun Facts

Today’s Fun Facts looks at the good old hit by pitch.

The Cleveland Indians have been hit 24 times this season. That’s 22 more times than Seattle, Atlanta and Cinncinati have been hit this year. In fact if you add up the Giants, Royals, Twins, Mets, Mariners, Braves and Reds it doesn’t add up to the amount of times the Indians have been plunked so far this year. Carlos Quentin has been the most abused batter of the year getting hit seven times already this season.

The Texas Rangers lead the majors in doling out hit batsmen with 18. Thats 15 more than the Royals who are bringing up the rear. Tim Wakefield and his dancing knuckle ball along with Justin Verlander lead the majors with six hits batsman.

Now comes the records.

Hughie Jennings is the record holder for being hit 287 times in his career and 51 times during 1896. If only Craig Biggio could have staid around a little longer the career record probably would have belonged to him as he finished his career with 285 HBP’s. The active leader is Jason Kendell who has 223 HBP’s so far but is starting to see less and less playing time. Hughie’s record seems safe for now as no other active player has reached the 200 HBP plateau yet.

On the pitching end Walter Johnson holds the record for most hits batsmen with 205. The active leader is Randy Johnson with 184 hit batsman. Randy would need to be pretty busy to catch Walter. That’s probably not something many batters would be to happy about, but hey its a record hes gotta do what hes gotta do. Joe McGinnity once hit 41 batsmen in 1900 and no one has came within 20 since 2003 to his single season record.