Top 106 Baseball Players: #39 - Mel Ott

Mel Ott

Mel Ott was one of the first great sluggers in the National League, even if he did have an unorthodox style at the plate, which is pictured above.

Ott was signed by the Giants at age 16, and made his Major League debut just after his 17th birthday. He played sparingly during his first two seasons, but as a 19-year-old he became the team's starting right fielder, and he also started an historic streak that season, as that was the first of 18 consecutive seasons in which he led his team in home runs, which is still a record.

Ott had a career-high with 42 home runs in 1929, at 20 years old, and his prowess at hitting the ball out of the park also allowed him to earn a lot of walks, and that season was the first of 6 times in his career in which he led the league in that category. He was arguably the best player in the league that year, but only finished 11th in the MVP voting.

In 1932 he led the league in home runs for the first time, knocking 38 of them out of the park, and also had a league-best 100 walks. He followed that up the next year by leading the Giants to the World Series, where they defeated the Senators in 5 games behind Ott's 2 home runs and 4 RBI, including the series-winning hit in the 10th inning of game 5.

The next season he led the league with 35 home runs and 135 RBI, but only finished 5th in the MVP voting, which shows how much he continued to be overlooked throughout his career, even after winning the World Series. Two years later, he had nearly identical numbers, and even led the league in slugging percentage, but still only earned a 6th-place finish in the voting.

He was able to bring the Giants back to the World Series in 1936 and 1937, but they lost both of those contests to the Yankees, despite solid play from Ott. His highest finish in the MVP voting came in 1942, when he led the league in runs, home runs, and walks, and ended up in 3rd place, though I feel that should have been his 5th MVP award, not just a good finish.

From that season on, he served as a player/manager, reducing his time on the field each year before retiring after making only 4 plate appearances in 1947. He finished his career as the first NL player ever to reach 500 home runs, and was also the first NL player ever to hit 100 RBI in 8 straight seasons. He was often overlooked during his career, and is not widely remembered today, but he deserves to be mentioned as one of the greatest baseball players of all time.