Luis Gómez (baseball)

Luis Gómez Sánchez is a former professional baseball player who played during the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico in 1951 and raised in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA, he attended and graduated from Nightingale Jr. High, then attended Belmont High School and UCLA.

The 5'9" Gómez played on the Bruins baseball team for three years ('71-'73) at shortstop. He is listed as having a batting average of .272, 2 HR, and 34 RBI in college. During his senior year, his batting average was .301 in 52 games and 186 at bats.

He started his major league baseball career with the Minnesota Twins in 1974, playing with them until 1977, when he moved to the Toronto Blue Jays, for which he played two seasons before being traded to the Atlanta Braves, playing his two remaining seasons there and retiring in 1982. He set an Atlanta record in 1980 with a .968 fielding percentage at shortstop and strung together 42 consecutive errorless games. He played shortstop, second base, and third base in 609 major league games.

Gomez was known for his exceptionally slick fielding, but also for his notably weak hitting. Among his hitting 'achievements':

- No non-pitcher since Bill Bergen retired in 1911 has had as many plate appearances as Gomez with an OPS of .500 or less. (Gomez's lifetime OPS is exactly .500.)

- In 1975, he played in 89 games without collecting a single extra-base hit, breaking a record held since 1916 by Mike McNally and which still stands.

- Gómez appeared in 609 major league games, the most among non-pitchers who never hit a home run.

- He also has the distinction of never having hit a home run as a professional baseball player at *any* level, whether in the majors, the minors or even in the Senior Baseball League.

Gómez joined the LDS Church as a result of his association with Garth Iorg, Alan Ashby,^[1] and Dale Murphy.

References

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube