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Rogers Hornsby (April 27, 1896 in Winters, Texas - January 5, 1963 in Chicago, Illinois), nicknamed "The Rajah", was a Major League Baseball second baseman and manager. Hornsby's first name, Rogers, was his mother's maiden name. He spent most of his career with the St. more...

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Louis Browns and the St. Louis Cardinals. In addition, he had short stints for the Chicago Cubs, the Boston Braves, and the New York Giants.

Hornsby ranks second on the list for highest career batting average. His career average of .358 is the highest for any right-handed hitter or National League player and 9 points behind Ty Cobb's career average of .367. The Baseball Hall of Fame elected Hornsby in 1942. He has also been given a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Baseball career

Hornsby holds the modern record for highest batting average in a season, .424 in 1924, and he won the Triple Crown in 1922 and again in 1925. He won the NL's MVP Award twice, in 1925 and 1929. At his peak, from 1920 to 1925, Hornsby led his league in batting average all six years, in RBIs four years, and in home runs twice. Over five seasons (1921 through 1925), Hornsby averaged an astonishing .402, a feat unlikely to be equalled. Besides his major league record of 6 consecutive batting titles (based on current research), he won a 7th batting title for the Boston Braves in 1928 (.387). He hit 301 home runs, not all of them as a second baseman. He is among the top four in home runs by a second baseman, as of the start of the 2005 season.

Hornsby was a remarkably consistent hitter who hit equally well when playing at home or on the road. His lifetime home batting average was .359, and his lifetime away batting average was .358. He had five seasons where he averaged over .400 at home, and four seasons where he averaged over .400 on the road. Hornsby began his career with the St. Louis Cardinals at the tail end of the 1915 season. He was a full-time player from 1916 through 1931, except for 1930 when he was sidelined most of the season due to an ankle fracture. At the end of his career as a full-time player Hornsby's lifetime batting average was .361. After 1931 Hornsby primarily focused his career on managing, however he would make occasional pinch-hitting and other appearances. His last appearance as a player was in 1937 while managing the St. Louis Browns.

During Hornsby's 15 seasons as a full-time player he finished in the top 4 in batting average 12 times, winning seven batting crowns, while finishing as runner-up three times. Hornsby led the league in slugging average 9 times, and was runner-up twice. He also led the league in on-base percentage 10 times. Baseball sabermetricians have developed a statistic to measure a player's overall production as a hitter. This statistic, called OPS+ (slugging average plus on base percentage adjusted for home park and normalized to league average), is considered by many to be the most elegant measure of a hitter's batting prowess. It has been found that in Hornsby's 15 seasons as a full-time player, he had the highest OPS+ in the league in 12 of those seasons, and on one other occasion he had the second highest OPS+ in the league. During that period Hornsby led the National league in various offensive categories 69 times.

Read more at Wikipedia.org