Top 106 Baseball Players: #44 - Al Simmons

Al Simmons

Al Simmons was one of the greatest all-around hitters in the early years of the live-ball era, and though was overshadowed in his time by bigger stars like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, he was just as good a player for quite a while.

He first played for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1924, and in his second season he had already broken out, leading all players with 253 hits, which is still the Major League record for a right-handed hitter. He also hit .387 that season, and led all players with 392 total bases, which ended with him finishing as the MVP runner-up.

For the next 6 years, he never batted below .340, and he won the batting title in 1930 and 1931, with averages of .381 and .390. He also led the league with 157 RBI in 1929 and 152 runs in 1930. From 1929 to 1933 he recorded at least 200 hits in each season, and he also surpassed 30 home runs 3 times over that span.

Simmons was one of the top players on three straight World Series teams from 1929 to 1931, hitting 2 home runs in each season's championship round, and batting at least .300 in each as well. The A's won the first two times they reached the Series, with Simmons as the best batter in the 1930 Series, at .364, but they fell to the Cardinals in 7 games in 1931.

After the 1932 season, the Athletics blew up their roster, and Simmons was sold to the White Sox, where he had two more very good years, batting at least .330 in both seasons with at least 190 hits. In 1935 his average dropped below .300 for the first time in his career.

Following that down year, he was sold to the Tigers, where he had his final star-level season, batting .327 with 112 RBI and 186 hits. After that, he bounced around several teams, switching uniforms 6 times over his final 7 seasons, all while his production slowly declined.

Simmons was a true superstar during his time with the Athletics, batting at least .340 8 times, and over .380 4 times, and he reached 200 hits 6 times, with 4 more seasons of at least 180. He was great in each of his first 3 World Series appearances, and earned two championship rings as a result, and though many do not remember his name today, he is definitely worthy of being remembered as one of the top 50 players of all time.