Posted By:
Tim NewcombJames ranks O'Doul 52nd among left fielders, between Kevin Mitchell and Hal McRae. This seems about right to me--
James does note that O'Doul hit two-thirds of his home runs at home (more doubles and triples away). And that his career BA was five points higher at home.
Another point to make is that O'Doul only played those two seasons (1929-30) with the Phils. According to retrosheet.org, his other home parks, Ebbets Field (1931-33) and the Polo Grounds (1928, 1933-34), were actually functioning as pitcher's parks during the years O'Doul played there. In those years his Baker Bowl at-bats were going into his road stats. Both these things would depress his home stats during his non-Phillie years, and tend to even out the home-road stats over his whole career.
What we really need to evaluate his batting record is full stadium-by-stadium stats, which I don't think we have. I'd be comfortable speculating that his BAKER BOWL (as home and road park) stats were substantially higher than his stats in other stadia, which again calls into question his 1929-30 performance.
I'd also note that while O'Doul did lead the league in BA in 1929, seven other players batted above .350 in the National League alone. In 1930 he batted .383 but was fourth, and 10 other NL players topped .350. So he's hardly the dominant hitter of his day.
He was a career .350 hitter in an era where outfielders didn't keep their jobs if they couldn't hit .300-- in other words, he was an very good player, but hardly to be mentioned in the same breath as Wagner, Cobb, etc.
Cheers,
Tim