Joe Posnanski writes a lot of books about loving sports, especially baseball. He loves it for all the nuances and one of my favorites is that his favorite baseball player is Duane Kuiper. There’s nothing particularly interesting about Kuiper other than that he holds the modern record for most At Bats hitting only 1 career HR. While most people care about Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth having the most HRs, let’s turn our attention to who has the fewest?
Baseball is tricky with records. Where do you start? What counts and what doesn’t? Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk about everyone.
The All-Time Record Holder (no HRs)
Bill Holbert is the recognized champ for fewest HRs, obviously with ZERO. Of course, he isn’t the only player to ever not hit a HR, but Hobert had the most ABs in his career with no long balls at 2,335. That’s 13 years’ worth of absolutely no power at all.
Wait, 13 years? That’s not very many ABs. When was this? There’s the rub with so many baseball records. Holbert played from 1876 to 1888. I’m sorry, but those records do not count. The real record holder is by a guy named Tom Oliver. Oliver played centerfield for the Red Sox from 1930 to 1933 and accumulated 1931 ABs. He managed 534 hits in his career with 101 doubles and 11 triples, but zero home runs.
Ok, that’s still not really that modern. How about someone I’ve heard of? That would be Don Sutton. Sutton pitched mostly for the Dodgers over his 18 year career (1966-1982, 1988) and managed to get to the plate 1,354 times. In that time, he only hit .144 which comes to 195 total hits. Of those, only 16 got past first base including a triple back in 1970.
C’mon, a real hitter! Fine! From 1973 to 1979, Tim Johnson played shortstop for the Brewers and then the Blue Jays. He came to the plate 1,408 times with 1,269 official ABs. None of his 283 hits left the yard.
How about the Phillies? The official record holder is 2B Emil Verban with 1,182 ABs for the Phillies without a dinger. As soon as he left Philadelphia mid-season in 1948 though, he hit one for the Cubs. Some modern pitchers like Kyle Kendrick, Brett Myers, Chris Short, and Curt Schilling never hit one out in their Phillies careers either.
The All-Time Record Holder (1 HR)
If a player never hit a homerun, then it is certainly possible that they were simply not capable of hitting a homerun. How about the tantalizing statistical anomaly that someone hits a single home run and then never does it again? Who are those leaders?
Officially, that would be the amazingly named Davy Force. From 1871 to 1886 he had 4,250 ABs. It wasn’t until 1882, after 12 years as a pro that he tallied his first round tripper. Of course, since it was over 140 years ago, we have no idea if he was even playing with fences let alone whether he hit the ball over one. The same goes for 2nd place Bob Ferguson who had one from 1871 to 1884.
The modern record is for Joe Posnanski’s guy, Duane Kuiper. Kuiper played 2nd base for Cleveland and San Francisco. In 1977, he hit one over the wall at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. For the entirety of his career, 3,379 ABs over 12 years, that was it.
Special recognition has to be given to pitching great Tom Glavine who famously did a commercial with teammate Greg Maddux about buffing up to hit bombs, “Chicks dig the long ball.” Maddux hit 5 in his career, but Glavine’s lone time in the HR spotlight came in 1995. Down 1-0, Glavine came to the plate in the 6th inning and took an 0-1 pitch from John Smiley over the left field wall. The Braves won 2-1. I’m assuming that was the day he met his wife.
There have been 198 hitters to finish their Phillies careers with just one HR. Omar Olivares managed to hit his in just 2 ABs in 1995. Bespeckled outfielder Greg Gross though managed just one homer in his 1,547 ABs. He wasn’t a bad hitter either with a .279 average. Simply, Gross was tiny for a ball player at 5’10 and 160 pounds.
Active Leaders
The official active leader in most ABs without a HR is pitcher Patrick Corbin. He managed 10 years of hitting chances without hitting one out, a total of 410 ABs. Let’s say we don’t want to include pitchers though? Jacob Amaya is currently in AAA, but he has 3 years and 143 ABs in the majors with no HRs. As of this writing, 22 year old rookie Edwin Arroyo for the Reds is still looking for his first HR after 131 ABs.
Old Timers Max Scherzer (464) and Zack Wheeler (288) hold the record for single home runs by active players, but they are both pitchers. Brandon Lockridge, formerly of the Padres and currently of the Brewers, has been to the plate 245 times. He hit a HR in his 9th career at bat and hasn’t hit one since.
Photo: Dave Hogg, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Inspiration: Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski1
- I’m reading the book now and right away it gets started with the most obscure home runs and it’s just wonderful ↩︎
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