I like anomalies and strangeness. I guess it’s why I do things like Terrible Tuesday and Weird Wednesday. Cards like today’s 1966 Alex Johnson fit in well. I’ve been playing Johnson in my 1966 replay this whole time without realizing he was the same Alex Johnson who won the batting crown for the Angels in 1970. I mean Johnson is a common name.
For the Cardinals in 1966, Johnson hit just .186 with two homers in 86 at-bats in real life. I’m using actual lineups in my replay and the Cardinals still haven’t realized that he’s not the outfielder they need in point that I’m at. It’s May 6th in my replay and he’s still starting a good majority of the games. He’s living up to his real life stats though. He has the lowest batting average among qualifiers with a .108 mark in my replay.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 Totals | 25 | 91 | 86 | 7 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 18 | .186 | .231 | .279 |
Johnson is fast and has a 15-10. And if you roll a zero, look out! But that’s the thing. He only has the one 66-0.
Ugly numbers: 51-40, 33-8, 11-7
Johnson’s number are sure to improve in a couple of years.
If you’re curious, here are the lowest BA among qualifiers in my 1966 replay (May 6).
| Player | Team | PA | Lowest AVG |
| Johnson, Alex | StL | 79 | .108 |
| Nicholson, Dave | Hou | 45 | .114 |
| Gentile, Jim | Hou | 68 | .115 |
| Williams, Billy | Chi | 86 | .154 |
| White, Bill | Phi | 71 | .157 |
| Hundley, Randy | Chi | 80 | .162 |
| Brown, Ollie | SF | 43 | .167 |
| McMillan, Roy | NYM | 55 | .174 |
| Pinson, Vada | Cin | 80 | .178 |
| Woodward | Atl | 57 | .180 |
The fact that Johnson has no sixes in the second column is pretty unusual. But any card based on a player with only 91 plate appearances is likely to be odd.
The 1966 Al Weis card should be pretty atrocious. He has 213 plate appearances and hit .155 for a White Sox team that had great pitching but nothing else.
Some pretty good names among the bottom ten hitters . . . Billy Williams, Bill White, Vada Pinson . . .
Williams has picked it up a bit. He was at the bottom for a while. He and Gentile were hitting around .080. Everything is starting to average out a bit now.
Yep, old AJ really stank for a while before he picked up. As i recall, he had a rep as being trouble, though i can’t recall exactly why.
In my 1967 AL replay, I have a player like this–the Yankees’ Bill Robinson, who stinks but would later be a good hitter in the NL.