You'll Never Find A More Unique Met Player Than Ron Hunt
· Yahoo Sports
One of the blessings that comes with an interest baseball history is that you get to learn and know about players like Ron Hunt, whose passing was noted in a wonderful writeup by Len Hochberg of MLB.com. Hunt was 85, and Hochberg came up with some great stories and quotes about a player who offered more than his share.
Hunt was the “combative” second baseman, to use Hochberg’s descriptor, who became the first Met to start in an All-Star game, and he was runner up to Pete Rose for the 1963 NL Rookie of the Year Award. Hunt also set one of the most remarkable records in baseball history when he registered 50 HBPs with the Montreal Expos.
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Hunt played the first four years of his career with the Mets, then a season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, three with the San Francisco Giants and parts of five with the Expos. He was elected to the Expos’ Hall of Fame, and he finished his career with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1974.
Hunt led the league in HPBs for seven consecutive seasons, and he retired with a total of 243.
“His hitting style was that he crowded the plate,” pitcher Bill Stoneman, Hunt’s teammate for three seasons in Montreal, said in 2015.
“I didn’t even know the record existed,” Hunt said years later in a French-language YouTube video showing his 50th HBP on Sept. 29, 1971, with Jarry Park fans cheering the moment. “It was just the way I could bother the pitcher, get on base, do my job, and it added a little offense. If he went inside, he had to be perfect or he’d hit me. If he went outside, I had a chance to hit him.”
Hunt became close friends with Jacques Doucet, a sportswriter for La Presse in Montreal, who supplied a prime quote about Hunt.
“Ronnie always used to say one thing to me in jest,” Doucet told fivethirtyeight.com. “‘A lot of people give their body to science. I gave mine to baseball.’”
Not surprisingly, Hunt was in his share of brawls, including a memorable one with Steve Arlin of the San Diego Padres back when both teams were expansion outfits in 1971. He was hit twice by Arlin in three innings, and the second time he picked up the ball and turned to catcher Bob Barton, who was following him down to first base based on the possibility of what would eventually happen.
If he hits me again, I’m going to punch you in the mouth,” Hunt told Barton, and he poked his finger into Barton’s chest protector. Barton didn’t appreciate Hunt’s response, so he yanked off the catcher’s mask and punched him in the back of the head.
At that point the brawl was on, and one of those involved in the fisticuffs was the ever-feisty Don Zimmer. A SABR article used by Hochberg described what happened next:
“Expos third-base coach Don Zimmer made a beeline for Arlin, ‘raining blows to the back and ribs’ of the pitcher until Padres third baseman Ed Spiezio began wrestling with him. Arlin kneed the 40-year-old Zimmer in the head and then Montreal’s Steve Renko -- an imposing 6-feet-5, 230 pounds -- tossed the San Diego hurler to the ground. ‘I wanted a piece of Arlin,’ growled a feisty Zimmer. ‘He’d started it all, and there was no way he was going to get off without paying for it.'”
Somehow Hunt was the only one ejected, but he was much more than just a brawler with a lot of HBPs. The St. Louis native had a career slash line of 273/.368/.347, with a career bWAR was 32.7 based on his 1429 total hits to go with 39 home runs and 370 runs. He also hit an inside the park home run off Sandy Koufax to break up Koufax’s shutout bid, and Hunt also homered off Bob Gibson in the first inning of a 1-0 win that wound up being a no-hitter for Gaylord Perry of the San Francisco Giants.