Baseball's Best Decade (6 page)

During the 1950s, the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees led all of baseball with a .269 batting average. Stan Musial was “The Man” for the Cardinals, leading the National League in batting 4 times.

Harvey Kuenn led the American League in hits 4 times during the 1950s, winning the AL batting title with a .353 average in 1959 … his last season with the Tigers
.

Matty Alou was a so-so hitter for the San Francisco Giants when he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1965. He led the National League in hitting (.342) in 1966 and averaged .335 for the rest of the decade.

Talk about a hitting phenom: Minnesota Twins outfielder Tony Oliva led the American League in batting (.323), runs scored (109), hits (217), doubles (43) and total bases (374) in winning Rookie of the Year honors for 1964.

1950s
– Overall, team batting averages slipped even more from the previous decade. The St. Louis Cardinals’ and New York Yankees’ .268 team batting averages would have ranked only fourteenth for the 1920s. The Cardinals again had the most hits for the decade among all major league teams with 14,253. The Cardinals led the National League in team batting average 4 times in the 1950s, and the Yankees topped the American League in team batting average 5 times. The only team to bat .300 for a season was Boston, which batted .302 in 1950.

Who almost made the list?
Cincinnati Reds at .262, Boston/ Milwaukee Braves and Chicago White Sox at .261.

1960s –
The 5 best-hitting teams over the course of the 1960s all came from the National League. The Boston Red Sox, which had the highest average among American League teams, ranked sixth. The Pittsburgh Pirates, led by 6 individual batting championships (4 for Roberto Clemente, one each for Dick Groat and Matty Alou) had the highest average at .268 and the most hits with 14,901. The Pirates led the National League in team batting average 5 times. In the American League, the Minnesota Twins had the highest team batting average 3 times during the decade.

Who almost made the list?
Boston Red Sox at .252, Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Dodgers at .251.

1970s –
For the first time since the 1920s, the leading team batting averages for the decade increased from the previous decade. The Chicago Cubs were far and away the best hitting team throughout the 1970s, and banged out the most hits (15,539). Though the Cubs had 3 individual batting champions during the 1970s (Billy Williams once, Bill Madlock twice), they led the league in team batting only in 1978 (tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers at .264).

Who almost made the list?
Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers at .262, Seattle Mariners at .258.

The Top Team Batting Averages for Each Decade: 1980s-2000s

1980s –
During the 1980s, the Boston Red Sox outhit the rest of major league baseball by more than 10 percentage points. The Red Sox led the American League in team batting 5 out of the 10 years, and 6 times the league’s batting champion wore a Red Sox uniform – once it was Carney Lansford, and 5 times it was Wade Boggs. The National League team with the highest batting average for the decade was the St. Louis Cardinals, whose .259 average ranked tenth among all major league teams at that time.