Stephenson's first year was 1921. He batted .330 that year. This link has his 1921 game logs
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=stephri01&t=b&year=1921
He
got a hit in his first career AB. So his average was 1.000. Then he
made an out the next time up. He is down to .500. An out his 3rd time
up, down to .333. But he gets a hit the last time up and is at .500
after his first game.
In his second game he goes 3 for 4. So if
he made an out the first time up he would just fall to .400 for the
season (2 for 5). But then he would get hits the rest of the game and
his avg would keep going up. He was at .625 after his second game.
With
5 hits now in 8 ABs, he would have to go 0 for his next 9 to fall below
.300. In the next 4 games he went 9 for 16. So again, he could not have
fallen below .300 at any time yet. The worst he could have done in
there would be an 0 for 7 (leaving him at 5 for 15 or .333).
So after 6 games he is 14 for 24. He would have to go 0 for his next 23 to fall below .300.
Over
his next 8 games he goes 7 for 25 (so no 0 for 23 stretch in there). He
is now 21 for 49 in 14 games. He would need to go 0 for his next 22 to
fall below .300.
He goes 6 for 22 over his next 7 games. He is
now 27 for 71 in his first 21 games. He would need to go 0 for his next
20 to fall below .300.
He goes 10 for 20 over his next 5 games. He is now 37 for 91 (.407).
I
think by now you get the idea that he did not fall below .300 at all
during his first year. He finished the year at .330 and was well above
.300 after every game that year.
He could not have fallen below .300 during a game only to get a bunch of hits during the rest of the game to get back to .300.
He
went 68 for 206 in 1921. If he were to start 1922 going 0 for 21, he
would fall below .300. He went 8 for his first 19. He is now 76 for 225
in his career.
He would need to go 0 for 29 to fall below .300.
He actually goes 14 for his next 29. He is now 90 for 254 in his career
and would now need to go 0 for 47 to fall below .300.
His season
avg stayed well above .300 the rest of 1922. After 2 seasons he is 147
for 439. He would have to start 1923 going 0 for 52 to fall below .300.
He
goes 15 for 53 in his first 25 games. He is now 162 for 492 in his
career. He would have to go 0 for his next 49 to fall below .300. He
went 13 for his next 47.
At this point you can pretty much just
start eyeballing his game logs and you won't see some long stretch of
games with 0s in the hit column
He batted well over .300 every
year of his career except 1925 when he it .296 in just 54 ABs and 1934
(his last) when he hit .216 in just 74 ABs. That was his last year and
his career avg was .336
It looks like he was at .300 after every AB of his career.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Was Riggs Stephenson a .300 hitter after every career AB?
At the following post, BB Ref said that Jimmie Foxx and Dale Alexander are the only players to be a .300 hitter after every at-bat of their entire career.
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