Mendoza Line
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The Mendoza Line is an informal term used in baseball for a batting average of .200, considered the boundary between extremely poor and merely below-average offensive players. It is the offensive threshold below which a player's presence in the Major Leagues is difficult to justify despite their defensive abilities; baseball pitchers are not subject to this threshold because of the specialty of their skills.
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[edit] Origin of the term
The general consensus is that the term was named for former shortstop Mario Mendoza, who had a career batting average of .215 and actually hit .198 in the 1979 season. According to this version, George Brett originated it when asked about his batting average. He was shown the average in a newspaper, and made a remark along of the lines of "I knew I was off to a bad start when I saw my average listed below the Mendoza line."
An alternate theory attributes it to a long-time minor league baseball player named Minnie Mendoza (born Cristóbal Rigoberto Mendoza in Ceiba del Agua, San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba on November 16, 1933). He finally caught on with a major-league team—the Minnesota Twins—in 1970 at the age of 36. He had 16 at-bats in 16 games for the Twins that year, and recorded 3 hits for a batting average of .188 (3 hits divided by 16 at-bats is 0.1875 rounded up). Additionally, Mendoza entered the Majors as the 3rd oldest player at the time, after approximately 14 seasons as a minor-leaguer.
[edit] Uecker Line?
The Mendoza Line could be named for any lifetime .200 hitter. Arguably, it could just as easily be called the "Uecker Line", after famously and self-described mediocre player Bob Uecker, who had 146 hits in 731 at bats in his career, just a tiny percentage below the .200 mark. [1]
[edit] Non-baseball use
The term has recently entered more general use as any level of acceptable mediocrity. For example, in handicapping sports, the Mendoza line would be set at the 50% mark, or where random chance would produce the same results as a handicapper's selections.
There is also a band called The Mendoza Line, of whom popular rock critic Greil Marcus is a noted fan.
