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Time For a Quiz! Who Was the Worst Hitter In Major League History?

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Time For a Quiz!

Who Was the Worst Hitter In Major League History?

We need to lighten up the mood a bit!

The highlight of our year, Opening Day, has come and gone. Will we even have a season? With things being a bit grim these days for all of us baseball fans, we need to have a little fun. And as I’ve said in some of my recent posts, “We’re here for you!”

Yesterday I happened to learn the identity of the worst hitter in major league history. You heard me right…not just a bad hitter, but THE WORST. And, boy, was he ever bad…

Just wait until you see some of his stats. I’m not a big sabermetrics guy, but I do like the OPS+, which is the on-base plus slugging adjusted for parks and era factors. The average for major leaguers is 100, so if your OPS+ is above 100, you’re an above average player among your contemporaries. If it’s below 100, you’re below average among your contemporaries. Below average marginal players usually come in around 75-90. In years of looking at this stat, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an OPS+ below 70.

But are you ready for this: This player comes in at -38! I didn’t think it was possible to have a negative OPS+ for your entire career, but he did it!

So it’s time to put on your thinking caps and see if you can figure out who it is. And no cheating! I have ways of finding these things out, you know! Haha!

But just to show what a nice guy I am, I’m going to give you a couple hints:

  1. To qualify for the dubious honor, the candidate had to have at least 300 at-bats (this eliminates guys who came up for a “cup of coffee” and went 0-4.
  2. Pitchers are eligible (like I said, we’re looking for the worst!).
  3. This player was in the major leagues for 16 seasons.
  4. He was an American League player his entire career, except for his last three seasons.
  5. His pic is above, without any team identification (I’m sure some of you will recognize him right away).

Be sure to check out the photo gallery to see pics of the 15 worst hitters of all time compiled by The Sportster a couple years ago. These are exclusively position players, no pitchers allowed on this list.

Come back at 6:00 PM CT and I’ll identify the player who holds the distinction of being The Worst Hitter of All-Time, along with some interesting information about his career. 

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Gary Livacari 

Photo Credits: All from Google search

Information: Excerpts from  The Sportster

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