A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Today's post is brought to you by Immaculate Grid, about which, yes, Tim and I used to do a SubStack, and may again in the future. In the meantime ...

The grid today included a column on players who got 200+ hits in a season crossed with three original-16 teams: Reds, Cards and A's. I went with Frank McCormick, Lou Brock and Al Simmons. McCormick was a guess. Well, all three were, but Brock got 3,000 hits and didn't walk much, and Al Simmons had those amazing early 1930s years, so those weren't fingers-crossed guesses as much as McCormick. I just didn't want to do Pete Rose ... which, yes, turned out to be the No. 1 answer for that square: Something like 85% chose him.

With reason. This is how many guys hit 200+ in a season for each of those franchises:

• Cards: 21
• A's 8
• Reds: 6

SIX?? And get this: no one since Pete Rose in 1977. That's shocking for two reasons. It means Rose didn't get to 200+ hits the year he hit in 44 straight games AND no Cincinnati Red has gotten 200+ hits in a season since 1977! I.e., since “Star Wars” came out! Since Jimmy Carter's first year in office! Since The New York Times first began to let Donald Trump lie all over its pages! That far back. 

It made me wonder if that's the longest 200+ hit drought for any team. Yep, and it's not even close.

LAST PLAYER TO GET 200+ HITS FOR EACH FRANCHISE

The Tampa Bay Rays are the only franchise that's never had a 200+ hit guy. They topped out with—believe it or not—Aubrey Huff, about to embarrass himself yet again a social platform near you, who got 198 in 2003. He and Carl Crawford (194 in 2005) are the only Rays/D-Rays to top 190. 

But the Rays have an excuse. They've only been around since 1998. The Reds have been swinging bats since basically the Civil War—the 19th century one. In case you're curious, here are the Cincy Six:

1. Cy Seymour (1905)
2. Jake Daubert (1922)
3. Frank McCormick (1938, 1939)
4. Vada Pinson (1959, 1961, 1963, 1965)
5. Frank Robinson (1962)
6. Pete Rose (1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977)

So is Cincy being punished for all the 200+ seasons it got with Pete Rose? Or because of what Pete Rose became? Or is? Is it the Curse of Charlie Hustle? 

What stunned me about the Twins, meanwhile, is that their last guy to do it, Paul Molitor, did it in his age-40 season, just three seasons from retirement, and he managed *225*. Wow. Even Luis Arraez, when he won the batting title as a Twin in 2022, managed just 173. That's how hard it is to do this thing. 

It helps to be a free-swinger, of course. There's a reason Miguel Tejada and Vlad Guerrero are on the above chart twice. There's a reason, too, that Ted Williams, Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas never got 200+: too many walks. That's probably why, in the Moneyball age, the 200+ stat doesn't seem to have the cachet it used to.

But that's no excuse, Cincinnati.