This past season, when CC Sabathia homered for teams in 2 different leagues, he became the first pitcher to so in one season since Earl Wilson in 1970.  According to Wilson's BR Bullpen page (the source for the aforementioned fact), he was the first  African American pitcher in Red Sox history and he also hit 35 home runs in only 740 career AB.  One  interesting thing not mentioned about Wilson is the number of times he homered in a season without hitting a double.

Here are the leaders in a season for home runs without a double:

    1 John Mayberry        7    0 1971  22 HOU NL  46 154 137  16  25  1  14  13   2  32   2   0   2   2   0  0  .182  .260  .350  .610 *3        
    2 Earl Wilson          7    0 1968  33 DET AL  40  92  88   9  20  1  17   2   0  35   1   1   0   1   0  0  .227  .253  .489  .742 *1        
    3 Earl Wilson          7    0 1966  31 TOT AL  45 113  96  20  23  2  22   8   0  36   1   6   2   0   0  0  .240  .299  .500  .799 *1        
    4 Carlos Zambrano      6    0 2006  25 CHC NL  37  80  73   9  11  0  11   1   0  27   0   5   1   2   1  0  .151  .160  .397  .557 *1        
    5 Luis Medina          6    0 1988  25 CLE AL  16  56  51  10  13  0   8   2   0  18   2   1   0   0   0  0  .255  .309  .608  .917 *3        
    6 Larry Hisle          6    0 1980  33 MIL AL  17  76  60  16  17  0  16  14   2   7   1   0   1   1   1  1  .283  .421  .583 1.004 *D        
    7 Earl Wilson          6    0 1965  30 BOS AL  47  96  79  13  14  0  12  13   0  29   1   3   0   2   0  0  .177  .301  .405  .706 *1        
    8 Duke Sims            6    0 1965  24 CLE AL  48 133 118   9  21  0  15  15   2  33   0   0   0   2   0  0  .178  .271  .331  .602 *2        
    9 Carl Sawatski        6    0 1963  35 STL NL  56 120 105  12  25  0  14  15   7  28   0   0   0   0   2  0  .238  .333  .410  .743 2         
   10 Babe Ruth            6    0 1935  40 BSN NL  28  92  72  13  13  0  12  20   0  24   0   0   0   2   0  0  .181  .359  .431  .790 *7/9      

A player has hit 7 home runs in a season without a home run, Wilson did it twice.  Another 7  players have hit 6 and one of them was Wilson. For his career, Wilson hit 35 home runs and 12 doubles. No player with 25 or more home runs had fewer doubles.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.