Expert: Tom Schott - 6/1/2008

Question
which player has hit the most foul balls at one time at bat and how many  were there? thank you

Answer
Larry:

We cannot be definitive about this one. The number appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15.

This story sounds apocryphal, but here is something I found on the Baseball Fever web site.

Is there a record for most foul balls hit in a single at-bat? Or most pitches to one batter in a single at-bat?

I remember reading about Enos Slaughter fouling off either 26 pitches in a single at bat. He didn't do it because he was looking for a pitch to hit but because he was sort of a cranky guy, it was a hot day, and he had an old feud with the ump, who had called him out in his previous at-bat on a pitch that was a foot off the plate (according to Slaughter), so he just kept poking balls foul. Slaughter said he was so mad at (and so disliked) the ump and so glad that he (the ump) had to stay out in the hot sun in heavy black wool, that he (Slaughter) was happy to do it all day. He would have except the pitcher got pissed (because he threw a pitch that was supposed to be ball four but Slaughter reached into the other batters box to poke it foul) and gave him a fastball in the ribs.

Here's another response I found on Wikianswers:

Record Number of Foul Balls

According to Mike Attiyeh, 15. Pitcher: Bob Feller. Batter: Luke Appling (White Sox). Year: 1940. (http://baseballguru.com/attiyeh/bbread8.html)

Answer

And here's something from yet another website:

"Foul ball records are not kept, but baseball author Bill James once wrote that Roy Thomas, who played in the National League from 1899 to 1911, fouled off 22 pitches in one at-bat.

Hall of Famer Luke Appling reputedly hit 17 fouls while waiting for a pitch he liked. Appling, Chicago White Sox shortstop who won the 1936 AL batting championship with a .388 average, was a master at deliberately fouling off pitches.

Another legend is that Appling once hit 14 foul balls into the stands to get even with a team owner who would not give him two extra game passes for friends."