Mario Mendoza: Branded for life with 'The Mendoza Line'

Mario Mendoza: Branded for life with 'The Mendoza Line'

Generally considered to be a batting average of .200, the Mendoza Line is the point below which baseball hitting incompetence is assumed.

"The Mendoza Line was created as a harmless clubhouse joke amongst friends. 'My teammates Tom Paciorek and Bruce Bochte used it to make fun of me,' Mendoza said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Sonora, Mexico. 'Then they were giving George Brett a hard time because he had a slow start that year, so they told him, 'Hey, man, you're going to sink down below the Mendoza Line if you're not careful.' And then Brett mentioned it to Chris Berman from ESPN, and eventually it spread and became a part of the game.'"

Brett came up with a rather spectacular recovery that year. He was close to the Mendoza Line at .209 on April 22nd. A month later, on May 22nd, he had barely crawled up to a listless .247.

But he finished the year at .390. That's the highest batting average in the AL since Ted Williams became the last .400 hitter in 1941.

How did he do it? From May 22 until September 19th, when his batting average actually reached the coveted .400 mark for a day, Brett batted an unreal .445 in more than 300 at bats.