Herman Long Committed 1,096 Errors in 1,882 Games

Published on April 16th, 2023 4:44 pm EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


Elvis Andrus is the current active leader in errors committed in Major League Baseball, as he has committed 221 errors over the course of his 15 year playing career.

Andrus, however, is FAR off the record for most errors committed in the history of Major League Baseball.

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That "distinction" belongs to a player by the name of Herman Long, who played in the big leagues from 1889 to 1904.

Long, who was a shortstop, played with teams such as the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies over the course of his career.

Here is the funny thing about Herman Long:

Despite holding the record for most errors committed in Major League Baseball history, Long was actually considered an exceptionally talented shortstop.

Long covered an exceptional amount of territory at shortstop, which would result in him committing a larger amount of errors.

Long would get to balls that other shortstops wouldn't even consider trying for, and this resulted in Long making a larger number of errors.

Long didn't care about this statistic, however - he would go for any ball that he thought he had a chance at.

In addition, errors were committed at a much higher frequency back in those days.

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Over the course of his career (1,882 games), Herman Long committed a total of 1,070 errors, meaning that he committed an error in more than half of his games.

In his first year in the league, Long committed a total of 122 errors in 137 games.

As mentioned, Long was an exceptional player and was actually a very good infielder.

In addition, Long was very strong at the plate, as he would post 100+ RBI seasons twice over the course of his career while posting a lifetime batting average of .277.