Were it not for Hank Greenberg’s 58 homeruns, Jimmie Foxx would have won the triple crown in 1938. Foxx did lead the AL with a .349 average and 175 rbis. Pretty much any other year, he would have probably been the HR king too with his 50 homers.
By 1938, Foxx was playing for the Boston Red Sox. Not only did he win the batting crown that year but his slugging percentage (.704) and on-base percentage (.462) were tops too.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938 Totals | 149 | 685 | 565 | 139 | 197 | 33 | 9 | 50 | 175 | 5 | 4 | 119 | 76 | .349 | .462 | .704 |
You can always tell a true monster card among full time players. They’re the ones with potentially good numbers where they shouldn’t be. Foxx has a few of those. He’s got a 26-14 and a 46-41 and if you want to stretch, a 61-37. The reason for that is of course, the combination of his high batting average (.349) and walk rate (119 in 685 PA).
One might call Jimmie Foxx a prototypical slugger but he only has three 13s. Not bad. Looking at his career stats, 1938 was a good year for him in that category (league leading 119 BB to 76 K) but throughout his career, he kept pace. Generally, his free passes outnumbered his strikeouts each year with some exceptions. For his career, he had 1452 walks and 1311 strikeouts.
And for a slugger, Foxx hit just enough triples (9) to justify a single column 3 (my personal favorite part of this card).
Thanks again to Rich Zawadzki for his suggestion and help with this post!!
Great idea to have videos with your article. Mel M.