Late Bloomers - Baseball

Revised 7/22/11

I was looking at Michael Morse's (OF, Was) page on Baseball Reference and saw that he's having a pretty good season so far in 2011 (.312, 17 HR in 87 games). Then I noticed that he's 29 years old, and he's never had more than 266 at-bats in his career. It got me to thinking, how often does a player have his first good season at such a late age and go on to have a solid career.

So here's the criteria I researched: How many players had 200 or fewer career hits before their age 29 season, but went on to get 1,000 or more hits.

In order to figure this out, I used Baseball Reference's handy Play Index (which unfortunately requires a subscription now). I took a look at all players who have 1,000 career hits (there are 1,205 of these guys), and then I took a look at all players who had 800+ career hits from age 29 on. I subtracted the difference for guys appearing on both lists (meaning they had 200 or fewer hits through age 28).

There are 39 36 players who got off to slow starts for their careers, but ended up with 1,000+ career hits. Six of them are active players (Raul Ibanez, Melvin Mora, Matt Stairs, Craig Counsell, Hideki Matsui and Casey Blake). Six of these guys began their careers prior to 1900, so I have put them in a separate table. Here's the full list:

Modern Era Players:

Player	H before 29	Career H	Years
Raul Ibanez	115	1744	2001 - 2011
Davey Lopes	156	1671	1974 - 1987
Sparky Adams	101	1588	1924 - 1934
Ken Williams	56	1552	1919 - 1929
Jackie Robinson	175	1518	1948 - 1956
Melvin Mora	119	1503	2001 - 2011
Otis Nixon	80	1379	1988 - 1999
Matt Stairs	69	1366	1997 - 2011
Earl Sheely	171	1340	1922 - 1931
Jimmy Austin	0	1328	1909 - 1929
Mike Kreevich	181	1321	1937 - 1945
Kevin Millar	168	1284	2001 - 2009
Hank Sauer	49	1278	1948 - 1959
Rip Radcliff	15	1267	1935 - 1943
Craig Counsell	171	1197	2000 - 2011
Hideki Matsui	0	1172	2003 - 2011
Randy Velarde	151	1171	1992 - 2002
Casey Blake	26	1169	2003 - 2011
Tom Paciorek	136	1162	1976 - 1987
Jim Eisenreich	64	1160	1988 - 1998
Scott Hatteberg	199	1153	1999 - 2008
Lefty O'Doul	14	1140	1928 - 1934
Gavvy Cravath	80	1134	1912 - 1920
Bill Robinson	190	1127	1972 - 1983
Paul Lo Duca	42	1112	2001 - 2008
Socks Seybold	19	1085	1901 - 1908
Mike Easler	37	1078	1980 - 1987
Pedro Feliz	147	1065	2004 - 2010
George Harper	88	1030	1922 - 1929
Frank Baumholtz	182	1010	1948 - 1957

Pre-Modern Era Players:

Player	H before 29	Career H	Years
Bones Ely	152	1333	1893 - 1902
Dave Foutz	86	1253	1886 - 1896
Chief Zimmer	135	1225	1890 - 1903
Jack McCarthy	100	1205	1898 - 1907
Doc Casey	31	1122	1899 - 1907
Ducky Holmes	180	1014	1898 - 1905

EDIT: The Play Index tool only works for seasons after 1919, so originally I had Deacon White, Jim O'Rourke and Cap Anson on this list by mistake, but they both had well over 200 hits by 29.