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The Greatest Switch-Hitter of All Time: Mickey Mantle!
Just read that 52 years ago today, Mickey Mantle hit a home run both left handed and left handed in in a 7-3 win over the White Sox. It was the tenth time in Mickey’s career he accomplished this, which set a major league record for switch-hit homers in a game. This got me to thinking: Who was the greatest switch-hitter of all time?
On some baseball all-time lists, it’s difficult to figure out who to put in the top spot. This is not one of those lists. That Mickey Mantle as the greatest switch-hitter of all time is actually a no-brainer. Here’s just a few highlights from his career:
Mickey played his entire career with the Yankees (1951-68) and was unquestionably one of the greatest baseball players of all time. A 16-season All Star, Mantle was a three-time Most Valuable Player, won the 1956 Triple Crown, and was a member of twelve pennant winners and seven World Series championships. Over his injury plagued, 18-season career, Mickey hit .298 with ten season at .300 or above. He had 2415 hits, with 1676 runs scored, 536 home runs (the most ever for a switch-hitter), 1509 RBI, and a .557 career slugging percentage (20th all-time). In addition, he has the highest career OPS+ of any center fielder, and was successful 158 times out of 191 in stolen base attempts (83%). He’s the career leader (tied with Jim Thome) in walk-off home runs, and holds World Series records for the most home runs (18), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (26),runs (42), walks (43), and total bases (123). Mickey was a first ballet Hall-of-Famer in 1974 and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999.
Who are some of the other great switch-hitters in baseball history? Here’s a list of the Top Ten found on an MLB.com article with some commentary from the article included. See if you agree. Counting down from #10, here’s the names:
10. Bernie Williams: He had 2,336 hits and was nearly a career .300 hitter, having a great peak with the Yankees, when he regularly hit 100 RBI
9. Lance Berkman: Nearly a career .300 hitter, Berkman has been an MVP candidate many seasons while putting up huge home run and RBI totals. His career OPS is far higher from the left-handed side, and his average is .307 there compared to .261 right-handed.
8. George Davis: Bill James is a big fan of 19th century star George Davis. His career average was .295, but in his time with the Giants, he hit .332 and has 619 stolen bases in his career as well.
7. Frankie Frisch: A .316 career hitter and MVP winner, Frisch led the league in stolen bases, hits and runs at least once, and he had many seasons with 10-plus triples and 100-plus RBIs.
6. Tim Raines: The stolen-base machine (808 in his career) had many All-Star appearances and over 2,600 hits in his career. He could hit home runs from either side at about the same rate.
5. Roberto Alomar: The frequent All-Star and Gold Glove winner was a career .300 hitter primarily for the Toronto Blue Jays. He was much more successful batting left-handed, hitting .314 for his career and finishing his career with more walks than strikeouts from that side.
4. Eddie Murray: No. 4 and No. 5 are practically interchangeable. Murray gets the narrow nod over Alomar thanks in part to the 500 home runs and 3,000 hits. He had little trouble hitting 30 home runs and 90 RBI in an era back when those were big numbers, and he was a perennial MVP candidate.
3. Chipper Jones: In nearly two decades in Atlanta, Chipper Jones established himself as not only one of the top third basemen of all time, but he’s easily one of the top three switch-hitters of all time. Jones won an MVP and accumulated over 2,756 hits and 468 home runs. His career batting average is .304 from the left side and .304 from the right, a testament to just how consistently great he was for the Braves.
2. Pete Rose: You could make the case for either Chipper Jones or Pete Rose at the No. 2 spot. Rose spent 25 years in the game as a switch-hitter and had over 3,000 hits batting from the left side to go along with over 1,000 batting right-handed. He was consistently great and knew how to play the game wherever he was needed.
1. Mickey Mantle: See above. No question that Mickey is Number One on this list!
-Gary Livacari
Photo Credits: All from Google search
Information: Excerpts edited from article, “Baseball’s 25 Greatest Switch-Hitters of All-Time,” by Dan Tylicki, March 2, 2012. Read more at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1086995-baseballs-25-best-switch-hitters-of-all-time; and from the Mickey Mantle Wikipedia page.
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You bet he was one of the greatest players in history- it is really sad that he was injured so much , it really hurt his career, but even though his health and injurries for so much he still played up to his best. and he was clean, just a natural man. A great Yankee Fan i have lived and died with the yankees you know ya got to look at the Yankees and they are all clean faced. and that is because of Mr George – just look at the rest of the major league players beards and all that stuff, not the Yankees and again it was because Mr George Ste