<\/strong><\/p>\n As nothing more than a casual baseball fan that doesn\u2019t play fantasy, I have always been more fascinated with all-time records and idiosyncrasies than the statistical minutiae most of you pore over regularly.\u00a0 I would rather find Babe Ruth\u2019s<\/a> highest combined total of home runs hit and hot dogs consumed in a single game than hear about Pujols<\/a>\u2019 OPS for the month of May.\u00a0 I make my way through Wikipedia, page after page, delving deeper into the obscurities of our national pastime with every click of my mouse.\u00a0 Knowing more about mind-altering substances than I probably do about baseball, I find the fact that Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter on acid<\/a> to be arguably the most impressive feat in baseball, if not all sports, history.\u00a0 I learn and subsequently forget useless baseball trivia habitually, but last summer I came across something I felt compelled to remember and share with as many people as possible.\u00a0 This was something so remarkable that when given the chance, I felt that I had no choice but to inform an entire nation of gilded-Mexican-hat-wearers.<\/p>\n While investigating the mysterious figures that stand atop Major League Baseball\u2019s all-time career batting average list (Dan Brouthers of the Boston Beaneaters<\/a> is in the top 10, really?!), I discovered a man who I believe to be the most influential baseball player you\u2019ve probably never heard of, Wee Willie Keeler<\/a>.\u00a0 Now, if you Physically outmatched due to his slight stature, Wee Willie developed a number of techniques to become the game\u2019s greatest place-hitter.\u00a0 He once described his strategy to a reporter in five simple words, \u201cHit \u2018em where they ain\u2019t,\u201d advice I still remember hearing from my little league coach shortly before being benched for either hitting \u2018em where they were or more likely not hitting \u2018em at all.\u00a0 His fifth year in the league Wee Willie was traded to the Baltimore Orioles, where under manager Ned Hanlon, he and his teammates epitomized what is known today as inside baseball, more commonly referred to as small-ball.\u00a0 Yes, much of the strategy during this time focused on manufacturing runs through speed and smart base running, but Keeler and his Orioles took it to another level.\u00a0 The term \u201cBaltimore Chop<\/a>,\u201d used to describe a ball hit hard off the dirt in front of home plate and high into the air, is directly attributable to this team.\u00a0 While this now typically happens only by accident, the Baltimore Chop was such a focal point of Keeler and the Orioles\u2019 strategy that the groundskeeper mixed hard clay into the packed dirt in front of home plate to provide them higher bounces.\u00a0 Using this extra hang time, Wee Willie actually once legged out<\/em><\/strong> a<\/em><\/strong> double<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>on a Baltimore Chop.<\/p>\n Wee Willie was also a remarkable bunter.\u00a0 Honus Wagner<\/a> once said about him, \u201cKeeler could bunt any time he chose,\u201d and he was right.\u00a0 In his 1898 NL Batting Title campaign, only 10 of Wee Willie\u2019s 216 hits went for extra bases.\u00a0 There are no records for how many of those 206 singles resulted from bunts, but I believe it is safe to say Mr. Keeler was more than adept at getting on base without using power.\u00a0 And it was this propensity for bunts that caused the league officials to reexamine the rulebook.\u00a0 Wee Willie could foul off bunted balls almost indefinitely and was solely responsible for the rule change that now results in a batter being called out if he fouls off a bunt with two strikes.\u00a0 This might not seem like a big deal, but in the 5th<\/sup> inning of the Mariners game against the Padres on Thursday, the M\u2019s shortstop Josh Wilson<\/a> did exactly that with two runners on base and I bet he would\u2019ve been cursing Wee Willie on his walk back to the dugout had he known the legend\u2019s adroit bat control was responsible for his being called out.<\/p>\n In today\u2019s age of hitter friendly parks and moon shot bombs, it is easy to forget about the little guys that paved the way for the game we know today.\u00a0 Even Hall of Famer George Brett<\/a> asked, \u201cIs he the guy they named the cookie after? Wee Willie Keebler?” after being told by a reporter he tied Keeler<\/a> for 20th<\/sup> place on the all-time hits<\/a> list.\u00a0 But what Wee Willie lacked in size, he made up for with highly-skilled batsmenship and baserunning.\u00a0 As Ted Williams<\/a> once said, \u201che was small in size but he was huge with the bat.\u201d\u00a0 This combined with his impact on both the strategies and rules of baseball still to this day should make you want to go out and inform someone less knowledgeable than yourself about the wondrous career of the one and only Wee Willie Keeler. May 23, 2010 As nothing more than a casual baseball fan that doesn\u2019t play fantasy, I have always been more fascinated with all-time records and idiosyncrasies than the statistical minutiae most of you pore over regularly.\u00a0 I would rather find Babe Ruth\u2019s highest combined total of home runs hit and hot dogs consumed in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,292,6,13],"tags":[21,373,380,375,374,383,381,378,379,382,377,384,376],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Willie_Keeler_Baseball_Card-168x300.jpg\" "\\"Willie_Keeler_Baseball_Card\\"")
<\/a> are in fact already privy to the accomplishments and influence of Mr. Wee Willie, please stop reading this and notify me immediately, I want to personally congratulate you for your studiousness and depth of knowledge regarding baseball history.\u00a0 Since I assume most of you are still reading, allow me to elaborate.\u00a0 Standing a shrimpy 5\u20194\u201d and weighing in at just a paltry 140 pounds, William Henry Keeler made his professional debut playing right field for the New York Giants in 1892.\u00a0 Wee Willie reportedly used only a 30\u201d bat, and with that diminutive stick the pocket-size player hit safely 2,932 times over his career for a lifetime batting average of .341.\u00a0 Wee Willie won the NL Batting Title in 1897 with a career best .424<\/a>, tops in single-season history for a leftie and 8th<\/sup> best all-time, and then won it once again in 98.\u00a0 He also had eight straight seasons with 200+ hits, a mark tied by Pete Rose<\/a> and broken only last year by Mr. Consistent, Ichiro Suzuki<\/a>, who had his ninth straight 200+ hit season in 2009.\u00a0 Keep in mind, however, that Wee Willie never broke 600 AB\u2019s during his streak.\u00a0 And, his 44 game single-season hit streak is second only to Joe DiMaggio<\/a>, with 56.\u00a0 While all this is impressive, there are an astounding number of hitters who compiled incredible statistics during the dead-ball era in all categories except home runs, of course.\u00a0 No, it isn\u2019t statistics that you need to know about Wee Willie Keeler; it\u2019s the way he played the game that crafted his indelible legacy.<\/p>\n
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