List of Major League Baseball career batting average leaders


In baseball, the batting average is defined by the number of hits divided by at bats. It is usually reported to three decimal places and pronounced as if it were multiplied by 1,000: a player with a batting average of.300 is "batting three-hundred." A point is understood to be.001. If necessary to break ties, batting averages could be taken to more than three decimal places.
Outfielder Ty Cobb, whose career ended in 1928, has the highest batting average in Major League Baseball history. He batted.366 over 24 seasons, mostly with the Detroit Tigers. In addition, he won a record 11 batting titles for leading the American League in BA over the course of an entire season. He batted over.360 in 11 consecutive seasons from 1909 to 1919. Rogers Hornsby has the second highest BA of all-time, at.358. He won seven batting titles in the National League and has the highest NL average in a single season since 1900, when he batted.424 in 1924. He batted over.370 in six consecutive seasons.
Shoeless Joe Jackson is the only other player to finish his career with a batting average over.350. He batted.356 over 13 seasons before he was permanently suspended from organized baseball in 1921 for his role in the Black Sox Scandal. Lefty O'Doul first came to the major leagues as a pitcher, but after developing a sore arm, he converted to an outfielder and won two batting titles. The fifth player on the list, and the last with at least a.345 BA, is Ed Delahanty. Delahanty's career was cut short when he fell into the Niagara Falls and died during the 1903 season.
The last player to bat.400 in a season, Ted Williams, ranks tied for seventh on the all-time career BA list. Babe Ruth hit for a career.342 average and is tenth on the list. A player must have a minimum of 3,000 plate appearances to qualify for the list.

Key

List

RankPlayerBA
1Ty Cobb *.3664
2Rogers Hornsby *.3585
3Shoeless Joe Jackson.3558
4Lefty O'Doul.3493
5Ed Delahanty *.3458
6Tris Speaker *.3447
7Billy Hamilton *.3444
Ted Williams *.3444
9Dan Brouthers *.3424
10Babe Ruth *.3421
11Dave Orr.3420
12Harry Heilmann *.3416
13Pete Browning.3415
14Willie Keeler *.3413
15Bill Terry *.3412
16Lou Gehrig *.3401
George Sisler *.3401
18Jesse Burkett *.3382
Tony Gwynn *.3382
Nap Lajoie *.3382
21Jake Stenzel.3378
22Riggs Stephenson.3361
23Al Simmons *.3342
24Cap Anson *.3341
25John McGraw *.3336
26Eddie Collins *.3332
Paul Waner *.3332
28Mike Donlin.3326
29Sam Thompson *.3314
30Stan Musial *.3308
31Bill Lange.3298
Heinie Manush *.3298
33Wade Boggs *.3279
34Rod Carew *.3278
35Honus Wagner *.3276
36Tip O'Neill.3260
37Hugh Duffy *.3255
Bob Fothergill.3255
39Jimmie Foxx *.3253
40Earle Combs *.3247
41Joe DiMaggio *.3246
42Babe Herman.3245
43Joe Medwick *.3236
44Edd Roush *.3227
45Sam Rice *.3223
46Ross Youngs *.3222
47Kiki Cuyler *.3210
48Charlie Gehringer *.3204
49Chuck Klein *.3201
50Mickey Cochrane *.3196