Reggie Jackson holds the record for the most career strikeouts by a batter with 2,597. Jim Thome (2,548), Adam Dunn (2,379), Sammy Sosa (2,306), Alex Rodriguez (2,287) and Andres Galarraga (2,003) are the only other hitters to strikeout over 2,000 times.
For many years, Babe Ruth was known as the King of Strikeouts. He was known for his all or nothing batting style. He led the American League in strikeouts five times, and accumulated 1,330 of them in his career.
another little recognized stat for the Babe. Although he was know as a power hitter he had lifetime batting average of somewhere around 348.....imagine that...higher by a 100 points over guys making hundreds of millions in todays world.
Strikeout Percentage
All Time Leaders
'Top 1,000'
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/histrkop1.shtml
The ones at the top are all from the dead ball era. No need to swing hard for the fences because it wasn't going to happen........just make contact and get the ball to land in between defensive gloves, somewhere on the field.
Modern era guy who was the king of not striking out......Tony Gwynn.
https://deadspin.com/tony-gwynn-was-the-babe-ruth-of-not-striking-out-1592380307
nice reminder of Tony there metmike....One of the absolute all timers with a swing to kill for. Trivia note....although Tonly played in far off San Diego he came back every winter to Indianapolis to live here..One of our cities nicest, most humble, and admired citizens
Bob Gibson ???
EDIT... very evident that I guessed before looking... LMAO... you meant batters with strikeouts...
Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old female pitcher for the AA Chattanooga Lookouts, once played the New York Yankees in an exhibition game and struck Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession.
