Adrian Beltre became the all-time foreign-born hits leader last week, passing Ichiro Suzuki with a double off of Kenta Maeda. It was a great moment for Beltre, but also made me wonder just who the hit leaders from various countries are. Over 40 countries (and a few unincorporated territories) have had players in MLB at some point who managed to get at least one hit in the bigs. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to guess who all of the players leading those countries in hits are in this Sporcle Quiz.
Can you guess all the foreign-born MLB hit leaders?
Over 40 countries around the world have players who have at least one hit in MLB. Can you guess who leads each country?
Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images
We were going to just make another map like we did for the the hit leaders from each state last year, but I didn’t have a good explanation for why Ichiro Suzuki was going to be both the hit leader from Japan and the United States. Oh well, I’ll keep workshopping that one.
So here’s the Sporcle Quiz: you have 44 answers and 10 minutes to give them. Most, but not all, of the answers can be found below, along with a few other observations from most of these countries and a few other places. Whether you play the Sporcle Quiz or not, the notes are fun! I promise! They have #jokes and also jokes, and what more can you ask for on a Monday morning when you’re ignoring work to watch the World Cup, anyway?
If the embed above isn’t working for whatever reason, you can also play the quiz on Sporcle itself. Good luck!
Your post-game notes
- One player ever was born in Afghanistan — Jeff Bronkey — and he finished his career with zero MLB hits.
- American Samoa is an unincorporated territory, not a country, but Tony Solaita’s 336 hits still merit a mention given he’s the lone player born there to make it to the majors.
- One player, Ed Porray, was born at sea. This merman did not pick up any hits in MLB.
- Australian Joe Quinn played from 1884 to 1901, amassing 1,804 hits, and not a single Australian player has come close to that total since. Dave Nilsson, whose career spanned most of the ‘90s, is second with just 789.
- Dutch Ulrich is the hits leader from Austria as well as its most prolific pitcher, despite just three years in MLB.
- This isn’t about hitting, but all three pitchers that have ever come from Brazil have reached the majors during the second-half of this decade.
- Canada is a significant enough baseball country to have put 249 players in MLB, to regularly appear in the World Baseball Classic, to be the home country of Joey Votto, but they haven’t come close to producing anyone with 3,000 career hits yet. They do have one Hall of Fame pitcher (Fergie Jenkins), though, and he was nearly a 300-game winner!
- Add China to the list of countries with just one player and no MLB hits. You would think that will change sometime in the near future, given China’s increased presence in the international baseball scene.
- It is very weird to me that Edgar Renteria has more career hits than Larry Walker, but Colombia will take it.
- Cuba’s Rafael Palmeiro is one of just five foreign-born players with at least 3,000 hits, and the lone Cuban to achieve the feat. Yasiel Puig needs to pick up the pace.
- Andruw Jones is the lone player from Curacao with even 1,000 hits, but Andrelton Simmons (833) is going to change that in a hurry.
- Elmer Valo has 1,420 hits, and 1,413 more than the next-most from the Czech Republic. That record has stood since 1961, and sure seems like it’ll be safe for some time more. (Valo is also on top for Slovakia — have fun going through Wikipedia to trace that after you finish this.)
- Of course Adrian Beltre is tops among Dominican-born players: he’s at the top of the list of all foreign-born players. Before Beltre took over in the Dominican, it was Albert Pujols, and before that Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero. Beltre is also fifth all-time in homers among Dominican players, with 464.
- San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy is second among players born in France with 192 knocks.
- Guam is also an unincorporated territory of the United States, and John Hattig is its hit leader with eight.
- Just one of the 47 Irish-born players in MLB history was born in the 20th century. That’s Joe Cleary, who was born in 1918 a month after World War I ended, and then debuted in the majors a month before the end of World War II. Also, Patsy Donovan, Ireland’s hits leader, has more hits than Larry Walker.
- Chili Davis played in the majors for 19 years. One of just four Jamaican-born players ever, he also has more career hits than Larry Walker.
- You already knew Ichiro Suzuki has the most hits among Japanese players. He has the most hits of anyone!
- It’s going to take Christian Villanueva a long time to catch up to childhood hero Vinny Castilla.
- Didi Gregorius and Xander Bogaerts are teammates on the Netherlands’ World Baseball Classic squad, but that’s because of how territorial control plays into roster-building in that tournament. Gregorius is from the Netherlands itself, while Bogaerts is from Aruba, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They‘re Yankees/Red Sox rivals at shortstop and Dutch empire rivals, basically.
- Everth Cabrera briefly looked like he might wrest the crown from Marvin Benard for Nicaragua: between Cabrera’s fall and Cheslor Cuthbert being a zero offensively, Benard’s total might be safe for some time.
- Players like John Anderson are always a little funny, since he’s one guy from over 100 years ago that you’ve probably never heard of, from a country you maybe weren’t aware ever produced a big-league player. But there he is, repping Norway with 1,843 Dead Ball hits.
- Rod Carew is another member of the foreign-born 3,000 hit club, as the Panamanian logged 3,053 of them, earning a mention in a Beastie Boys track for his efforts.
- Bobby Chouinard picked up a single hit in his career, making him the leader from the Philippines. He did more in the majors than that, as he was a reliever who appeared in 111 games. So even one hit is kind of a miracle: he had just nine plate appearances in his five years.
- Dammit, Moe Drabowski, you couldn’t have managed just one more hit?
- Frank Thompson has the only hits in Portugal’s history, and they gave him a career line of .130/.130/.174. Someone, anyone from Portugal: the bar is low, and it is yours for the taking.
- Roberto Clemente finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits, and while Puerto Rico is also an unincorporated territory of the United States, it’s one with 264 players instead of one, and it gets a spot in the quiz, okay?
- Wow, Eddie Ainsmith was from Russia and they let him into America to play the American pastime, obviously he is kompromat. #theresistance
- Craig Stansberry is the only hitter from Saudi Arabia; Alex Wilson the only pitcher. ”There sure are a lot of United States military bases in the world!” is the observation I wanted to make, but Stansberry’s dad worked for a “building materials” company and Wilson’s was a geologist, so I can’t. Still, there are like, so many, even if these dads won’t support me anecdotally.
- Gift Ngoepe might have just 13 hits, but he’s 28 years old and still active. He’ll need to start hitting at Triple-A again to get another shot, though.
- Shin-Soo Choo is one of 23 players from South Korea to make it to the majors, but he kind of stands alone on the hit list: his 1,423 is about 1,200 more than the next-highest.
- Al Pardo is just making me think of Don Pardo which is just making me think of Don Pardo introducing Al Pardo as he walks to the plate.
- And Eric Erickson is making me recall one of my favorite parts from the original Thor movie:
- Otto Hess was a starting pitcher, and not a bad one! He finished his 10-year career right around league-average, and reached base with a hit 154 times along the way.
- A few more trips to the majors as an injury replacement, and Tzu-Wei Lin might take over the top spot for Taiwan.
- To come back around on previous topics, the U.S. Virgin Islands were actually sold to the United States by the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway: Denmark and Norway have combined to produce four major leaguers, while the U.S. Virgin Islands alone have 14. This was poor financial decision-making, when you think of it like that.
- There are fewer MLB players from the United Kingdom than credited actors from the United Kingdom in any season of the American-produced Game of Thrones. Makes you think.
- Venezuela has produced the third-most MLB players of any country, behind only the United States and the Dominican Republic. Miguel Cabrera (2,676) will eventually take this top spot from Omar Vizquel, but he‘ll have to wait until 2019 to get going on that again thanks to a season-ending injury.
See More:
