Honus Wagner Won Eight Batting Titles From Shortstop

Honus Wagner won eight National League batting titles, collected 3,420 hits and stole 723 bases, all while playing shortstop. When the Baseball Hall of Fame elected its first class in 1936, he went in alongside Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth.

Wagner played 21 seasons and hit .328 for his career. He led the league in doubles seven times, in slugging six times and in stolen bases five times. That combination is the argument in one line: he was the best hitter, one of the best power threats and one of the best baserunners in his league, and he did it from the most demanding defensive position on the field.

The 1936 vote is worth more than a modern ranking, because it is the judgment of people who watched him. In the inaugural Hall of Fame class of five, the voters put Ty Cobb first and then Wagner and Ruth level with each other, ahead of Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson. His contemporaries thought he was the best player in baseball who was not Cobb, and many of them thought he was better.

What has not been replicated is the shape of it. Shortstop was understood as a defensive job for a small man who could not hit, and Wagner was a large, awkward-looking figure with enormous hands who hit third and ran. Modern shortstops who hit like him do not field like him; the ones who field like him do not hit.

Cal Ripken redefined what a shortstop could look like physically and played 2,632 consecutive games. Derek Jeter won five championships and 3,465 hits and owned New York for two decades. Rogers Hornsby, at second base, hit .424 in 1924 and has the highest career average of any right-handed hitter. Alex Rodriguez put up better raw offensive numbers at the position than anyone, with the steroid question attached.

Hornsby has the better bat and Ripken the more visible legacy. Wagner has the eight batting titles, the defense and the verdict of everyone who saw all three of them play.

The verdict: Wagner for the dead-ball era. Hornsby for the bat. Ripken and Jeter for the modern game.