Hecker is the only pitcher ever to win a ML batting title. A hard thrower (when the
regulation pitching distance was 50 feet), he often played first base or outfield
for his mediocre Louisville team when he wasn't pitching. Appearing in only 84 of
the Colonels' 136 games in 1886, he hit .342 to top Pete Browning by .002 and lead
the league. In a game against Baltimore that year, he went 6-for-7, a record for
pitchers; his seven runs scored in that game is still a record for any player. Three
of his hits that day were inside-the-park home runs; this was the first three-homer
game by a pitcher and the only three-homer game for any(--h)h)h)player in the American
Association's ten-year existence as a major league. Hecker also won 27 games for
sixth-place Louisville that year, but by then he was on the downgrade, each year
slipping farther from his phenomenal 52-20 season of 1884, when he completed 72 games
in 73 starts, pitched 670.2 innings, had 385 strikeouts, and compiled an estimated
ERA of 1.80, all league-leading statistics.
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