page_title: Ken Boyer
section_title: St. Louis Cardinals
hierarchical_section_title: Ken Boyer / Baseball career / Major leagues / St. Louis Cardinals
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Louis Cardinals third baseman en:Ken Boyer in a 1955 issue of Baseball Digest.
context_page_description: Kenton Lloyd "Ken" Boyer was an American Major League Baseball third baseman, coach and manager who played on the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers for 15 seasons, 1955 through 1969.
  Boyer was an All-Star for seven seasons, a National League Most Valuable Player, and a Gold Glove winner five seasons. He was named the NL MVP in 1964 after batting .295 with 185 hits and leading the NL with 119 runs batted in, and leading the Cardinals to the World Series title. He hit over .300 for five seasons and hit over 20 home runs for eight seasons.
  He became the second third baseman to hit 250 career home runs, retiring with the third highest slugging average by a third baseman; he was the third after Pie Traynor and Eddie Mathews to drive in 90 runs eight-times, and he remains the only Cardinal since 1900 to hit for the cycle twice. When Boyer hit 255 home runs, he was second to Stan Musial with Cardinal career home runs; he held the team record for a right-handed hitter from 1962 until Albert Pujols passed him in 2007.
context_section_description: Boyer made his major league debut with the Cardinals on April 12, 1955, in a 14–4 road loss to the Chicago Cubs, hitting a two-run homer in the eighth inning off Paul Minner as his first hit, and batted .264 with 62 RBI his rookie season. In 1956, he received his first of seven NL All-Star selections and started at third base (first of five starts at third base) batting cleanup for the National League All-Star team; he finished the season with a .306 batting average, 26 home runs and 98 RBI, and led NL third basemen in assists (309) and double plays (37). He was shifted to center field in 1957 to allow rookie Eddie Kasko to break in at third, and led all NL outfielders in fielding percentage, but returned to third base in 1958, winning the first of four consecutive Gold Gloves and again collecting 90 RBI while batting .307 and scoring 100 runs for the first time. That year he also became the Cardinals' regular cleanup hitter, a role he would hold regularly for the remainder of his time with the club. His 41 double plays in 1958 equalled the second-highest total in NL history to that point, and fell just two short of Hank Thompson's 1950 league mark; he also led the league in putouts (156).
  He became the Cardinal team captain in 1959, and compiled a 29-game hitting streak from August 10 to September 12 of that year, during which he batted .350 with eight home runs and 23 RBI; it was the longest hitting streak in the major leagues since Musial's 30-game run in 1950. Boyer finished 10th in the MVP voting that season after batting .309 with 28 home runs and 94 RBI, and began a run of six consecutive All-Star selections, starting the second of the two 1959 games; he again led the NL with 32 double plays. In 1960–61 Boyer led the Cardinals in batting average (.304 and .329), home runs (32 and 24), runs (95 and 109), RBI (97 and 95) and total bases (310 and 314), and finished 6th and 7th in the MVP voting. He led the league with 37 double plays in 1960, and with 346 assists in 1961. He was also named the NL's Player of the Month for September 1960 after batting .385. He hit for the cycle, with an additional single, in the second game of a doubleheader on September 14, 1961, against the Cubs, becoming the first player in history to complete the cycle with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning for a 6–5 victory; his RBI double in the 9th inning had tied the game. In that game he also joined Musial as the only Cardinals to hit two walk-off home runs in a season in two different years; Boyer also had two walk-off homers in 1958 (May 31 and June 11; he was the fourth Cardinal to hit two extra-inning walk-off homers in a season, with both leading off the bottom of the 12th inning) and a previous one in 1961 on August 8. On September 19, 1962, Boyer broke Rogers Hornsby's team record for home runs by a right-handed hitter with his 194th career round-tripper, a 2-run shot off Billy O'Dell in the first inning of a 7–4 loss to the San Francisco Giants. He finished the season with 98 RBI, equaling his career best to that point, and started both All-Star games, also leading the league in double plays for the last time with 34. On June 7, 1963, Boyer became the second Cardinal to hit 200 career homers, connecting off Al Jackson in the 4th inning of a 3–2 road loss to the New York Mets. He was again named to the NL All-Star starting lineup, increased his RBI season total to 111 that year, and won his fifth Gold Glove award.
  Boyer had his best season in 1964, keeping the Cardinals alive for much of the season as he batted .350 in May and .342 in July, and starting for the NL in his last All-Star appearance. On June 16, he became the 19th player in major league history to hit for the cycle twice, and the seventh to hit for a natural cycle, in a 7–1 road victory against the Houston Colt .45s. Boyer's productivity early in the season kept the team in contention, although they were still only 54–51 and tied for fifth place on August 4; they fell 11 games out of first place by August 23, but mounted one of the great comebacks in his
caption: Boyer in 1955
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