Teixeira Moves Up Switch Hitter Heirarchy – Mantle Still King

Photo by Keith Allison

Yesterday (July 3, 2016), Yankees’ 1B Mark Teixeira got an early start on his Independence Day fireworks – clubbing a pair of home runs as the Bombers topped the Padres 6-3 in San Diego. It was an all-or-nothing kind of day for the New York slugger, who struck out in his first three at bats and homered in his final two.  (Teixeira is hitting just .192 on the season, with seven round trippers and 58 strike outs in 198 at bats.)

Teixeira’s round trippers not only helped the Yankees to a victory, they also had notable historic significance. They were Teixeira’s 400^th and 401^st  career home runs, making Teixeira just the fifth switch hitter to reach the 400 home run mark.  (Teixeira’s fellow Yankee Carlos Beltran reached 400 home runs on May 15 of this season.)

SWITCH HITTERS WITH AT LEAST 400 CAREER HOME RUNS

         Mickey Mantle            536

         Eddie Murray              504

         Chipper Jones              468

         Carlos Beltran             412 (still active)

         Mark Teixeira              401 (still active)

Mickey Mantle – King of the Switch Hitters

BBRT would like to use Teixeira’s accomplishment as a springboard to a look at some switch-hitting power records – which, by the way, provide evidence that, while Beltran and Teixeira moved up the switch-hitting hierarchy this season, Mickey Mantle is still the king.

• The record for home runs in a season by a switch-hitter is 54, by Yankee great Mickey Mantle in 1961. Mantle is, in fact, the only switch-hitter ever to reach 50 homers in a campaign; and he did it twice, with 52 in 1956 and 54 in 1961. (Ironically, the year Mantle set the record, he did not win the HR crown. It went to teammate Roger Maris with 61.)
• The NL record for home runs by a switch hitter belongs to the Braves’ Chipper Jones, with 45 in 1999. Like Mantle, Jones did not win the HR title in his record-setting season. Mark McGwire, then with the Cardinals, swatted 65.
• Mickey Mantle is the only switch-hitter to ever win the Triple Crown (.353-52-130 for the Yankees in 1956).

Mickey Mantle won more HR crowns than any other switch-hitter.  Here are the switching hitting HR champs:

• Walt Wilmot, Cubs, 1890 – 13 HRs
• Ripper Collins, Cardinals, 1934 – 35 HRs
• Mickey Mantle, Yankees, 1955 – 37 HRs
• Mickey Mantle, Yankees, 1956 – 52 HRs
• Mickey Mantle, Yankees, 1958 – 42 HRs
• Mickey Mantle, Yankees, 1960 – 4 0HRs
• Eddie Murray, Orioles, 1981 – 21 HRs (strike shortened)
• Howard Johnson, Mets, 1991 – 38 HRs
• Mark Teixeira, Yankees, 2009 – 39 HRs

Both of Teixeira’s home runs in yesterday’s game came as a left-handed batter – but I’d like to take a look at a more unique accomplishment, players who have hit a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game.  It’s not as rare a feat as you might think.  It’s been accomplished  291 times (174 in the American League, 117 in the National League).

• The first player to homer from both sides of the plate in the same game was Wally Schange of the Philadelphia Athletics on September 8, 1916.
• The most recent player to homer from both sides of the pate in the same game was Nick Swisher (for the Braves on August 22, 2015).
• The career record for homering from both sides of the plate in the same games is 14 – shared by Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher. Leaders among players homering from both side of the plate in the same game:
  • Mark Teixeira – 14 times
  • Nick Swisher – 14
  • Carlos Beltran – 12
  • Chili Davis – 11
  • Eddie Murray – 11
  • Tony Clark- 10
  • Ken Caminiti – 10
  • Mickey Mantle – 10
• In 1996, the Padres’ Ken Caminiti hit a home run for both sides of the plate in the same game a record four times in a single season – three times in the month of August alone. Note: Caminiti also achieved the feat three times in a single month in September of 1995.

From 1955-1965, a game in which a player homered from both sides of the plate occurred in the AL 14 times, with 13 of those being Yankees (Mickey Mantle 10, Tom Tresh 3). 

The only non-Yankee to achieve the feat in the AL during that time span was the Red Sox’ Pumpsie Green (August 15, 1961). Green hit a total of just 13 home runs in his five-season MLB career.  BBRT Note: Green achieved historic significance as the first African-American player for the Boston Red Sox – the last MLB team to break the color line (1959). In the 1955-65 time span, there were only three NL games which saw a player homer from both sides of the plate – two by the Cubs’ Ellis Burton, one by the Dodgers’ Maury Wills.

• Only three players have hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same inning: Carlos Baerga, Indians (April 9, 1993); Mark Bellhorn, Cubs (August 29, 2002); Kendrys Morales, Angels (July 30, 2012).
• In the post season, a game with a home run from both sides of the plate has been achieved just four times: Twice by the Yankees’ Bernie Williams (Game Three of the 1995 ALDS and Game Four of the 1996 ALDS); the Braves Chipper Jones (Game Four of the 2003 NLDS); and the A’s Milton Bradley  (Game Two of the 2006 ALCS).

I tweet baseball @DavidBBRT

Member: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR); The Baseball Reliquary; Baseball Bloggers Alliance

Photo by Keith Allison