When he walks to the plate like an outsize Little Leaguer, batting helmet resting loosely on his ears, hardly anyone in Boston cheers, or even boos. When he stands in to bat lefthanded, only the shortstop bothers to play him deep. The front office talks blandly of trading him, fans pass him blankly on the street, his manager bats him seventh and remarks flatly, "You never really know he's around." At 34, the Red Sox' James Edward ("Pete") Runnells is one of the most inconspicuous players in baseball. He is also the best hitter in the American League. Last week Pete Runnells was batting .339—more than 25 points above his nearest competitor—and needed only a handful of hits to clinch his second American League batting championship and his fifth straight season over .310.
Home Run Mistakes. Born 30 years sooner, Runnells might well have been a candidate for baseball's Hall of Fame. A scientific hitter in the mold of Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb, Runnells smacks clean line drives, rarely swings at a bad pitch. He steals an occasional base, is a superb buntsman and a meticulous fielder. One mistake he rarely makes: hitting home runs. "When I get one over the fence," he says, "I'm doing something wrong," and in twelve seasons Runnells has cleared the fence only 46 times. "I was born to hit to leftfield," he explains.
"I never could pull, from the first day I picked up a bat. I pull a ball and you know where it goes? It goes to right centerfield, that's where." In the era of the home run, Singles Hitter Runnells is an overlooked oddity.
The Red Sox pay him a fat $40,000, but Pete does not share in royalties from TV commercials and product endorsements that bring in as much as $100,000 a year to such sluggers as Roger Maris. Runnells did a few Camel cigarette commercials in 1960 and 1961, but his contract was not renewed; he now smokes Lucky Strikes.
"I've never been much for walking up to people and saying 'Hey, I'm Pete Runnells,' " he says. "It's probably embarrassment. Maybe if I were more pushy I'd have made more dough." Never Mind. This season, as usual, Runnells' busy bat is doing all the pushing. But Pete has still mistaked only nine home runs in 1962. "It used to be quite a thing to lead the league in hitting," he says. "But now, from the standpoint of the fans, that don't sit so high. I just don't hit home runs, I never did, and I never will. I don't hold it against anybody." Runnells even forgives baseball's record keepers for spelling his name wrong; a Marine sergeant dropped the last l in an intra-service box score in 1947, and the misprint has never been corrected. In the Baseball Register, the program, the newspapers—and even on the silver bat he got when he won his first batting crown in 1960—his last name is spelled with only one l. Drawls Runnells, who now signs autographs with one l himself: "It don't make no real nevermind."