Today, we lost another great in the world of Baseball as Ralph Kiner passed away today at the age of 91. Kiner was only in Major League Baseball for ten seasons as a sever back injury took him out of the game at the age of 32, but in his first seven seasons he was one of the most decorated power hitters ever.
Kiner entered MLB with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1946 and won the National League Home Run title, which is an accolade he would win the next six seasons after. His career total would be 369, and to this day he remains in the top ten in Home Runs per At Bats. Kiner also had a career On Base Percentage of .398 which puts him 68th all time and he had an OPS over one three times all of which resulted in leading the NL in that category.
Kiner still holds the record for the most Home Runs in the first five seasons of a career (215) and was an All Star six times. He would enter the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1975 on his final year of eligibility. As revered he was a player in Pittsburgh, he may have eclipsed that in New York where he joined the broadcast booth as an analyst in their first year of expansion in 1961.
In New York, he would become an icon all over again, and would do color commentary for fifty-three years. We here at Notinhallloffame.com express our condolences to the family and friends of Ralph Kiner.
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