What happened to baseball's .300 hitter?
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PHILADELPHIA — With hitters struggling, pitchers dominating, and officials wondering how to juice offensive production back to fan-pleasing levels, Major League Baseball was in crisis.
It was 1968, the so-called "year of the pitcher." Across both the National and American Leagues, offense was at or near a record low in all sorts of measures: runs, hits, home runs, runners reaching base, slugging percentage, you name it.
In all of baseball that year, only six hitters managed a batting average of .300 or higher, an all-time low. In the American League, Boston's Carl Yastrzemski won the batting crown with an average of just .301, a mark that still stands as the lowest ever to win a batting title.
Now, nearly six decades later, what's old is new again: A batting average crisis is back.
You'd think today's batters have more advantages than ever: They train year-round.
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