The assertion that half the hitters of the deadball era hit .300 is not correct. For example, during the great Ed Walsh season of 1908, there were only three .300 hitters in the American League - Cobb, Crawford and Gessler. People see the great batting averages of players like Cobb and Wagner, and assume there were lots of players in their day who had high averages. Not true. It is a testament to their greatness that they outhit the league average by a wide margin season after season. Some of the lowest league averages in baseball history occurred during the deadball era. Hard as this may be to believe, we tend to underestimate the greatness of Cobb and Wagner, and Speaker and Lajoie as well.
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