The Greatest Hit in Baseball History
I learned just recently that former major leaguer Hal Smith passed away earlier this year. He was 89 years old and died in Columbus TX where he had lived for many years. In a way it's not surprising that news of Smith's passing took some time to reach me, even as an avid baseball fan. In many ways, his was a modest and inauspicious career. Over the course of ten seasons from 1955 to 1964 he played for five different teams. (His stats can be found here .) He was mostly a catcher but played some third base for the Kansas City A's in 1958 and 1959. He averaged 88 games a year, platooning for most of his career. He averaged fewer that six homers a season, batted .267 lifetime, and his career OPS+ of 94 reflects his journeyman status. While any player who makes it to the majors deserves to be admired, Hal's career was quintessentially average in almost every way. Except for one thing: he had the biggest hit in major league history. The third of his five stops was in Pi