plunk immigration

Today's Astros' opponents, the LA Dodgers, have a United Nations of a roster, featuring players born in 9 different countries. This is an excellent excuse to look at which players born in each country have been hit by the most pitches (that, and reader DM asked). Also, it seems worthwhile to take a look at the total plunk counts for batters born in each country or territory.

People say a lot of things about the position within the world community of the United States of America, but one thing is clear. American born Major League Baseball players have been hit by pitches 9 times more often than every other country in the world combined. There are only 7 countries (including the US) which have more total HBPs than Craig Biggio alone, and Biggio is very close to having accumulated more plunks than the top 2 players from any other country. Only the combined plunks of Cubans Minnie Minoso and Rafael Palmeiro (279) are greater than Biggio's current total (and obviously less than the total of fellow American, Hughie Jennings).

Here are the country by country HBP record holders, along with the total batters from each country, and the total plunks of all batters from each country through 2005. This list excludes countries which may have produced major leaguers in cases where none of them were ever plunked.

Player	HBPs	Country of Birth	Country Total Players	Country HBPs
Hughie Jennings	287	USA	14513	77877
Minnie Minoso	192	Cuba	150	1108
Andres Galarraga	178	Venezuela	181	1190
Carlos Delgado	139	Puerto Rico	215	2060
Larry Walker	138	Canada	205	908
Jose Guillen	88	Dominican Republic	410	2427
Devon White	87	Jamaica	3	105
Patsy Donovan	83	Ireland	40	300
Andruw Jones	62	Curacao	5	84
Vinny Castilla	57	Mexico	98	248
John Anderson	53	Norway	3	53
Einar Diaz	53	Panama	45	451
Tom Brown	46	England	30	97
Jimmy Austin	44	Wales	2	44
Joe Quinn	39	Australia	19	67
Elmer Valo	38	Czechoslovakia	4	40
Bobby Thomson	34	Scotland	8	59
Glenn Hubbard	33	W.Germany	13	39
Jolbert Cabrera	28	Colombia	7	72
Ichiro Suzuki	27	Japan	32	80
Marvin Benard	25	Nicaragua	8	33
Joe Christopher	19	Virgin Islands	10	72
Andre Rodgers	18	Bahamas	5	20
Reno Bertoia	16	Italy	6	17
Hee Seop Choi	16	South Korea	12	17
Fritz Buelow	12	Germany	28	62
Eddie Ainsmith	12	Russia	5	21
John Houseman	8	Holland	6	10
Gene Kingsale	6	Aruba	4	6
Gerald Young	6	Honduras	1	6
Otto Hess	4	Switzerland	1	4
Tony Solaita	3	American Samoa	1	3
Steve Jeltz	3	France	8	7
Chito Martinez	2	British Honduras	1	2
Olaf Henriksen	2	Denmark	1	2
Brian Lesher	1	Belgium	1	1
Moe Drabowsky	1	Poland	4	1
Robin Jennings	1	Singapore	1	1

(Data through 2005)

The Dodgers have had players from 17 countries, other than the United States, get hit by pitches for them in franchise history. Among active franchises, only the Baltimore Orioles have had as much variety in the country of birth of their plunked players. The Twins, Yankees and Cardinals have all had players born in 16 foreign countries get hit for them. The Astros are tied for 6th with 11 non-US countries represented among their batters who have been plunked, and the Colorado Rockies are dead last in immigrant HBP variety, with only 4 foreign lands as the place of birth among their batters who have been hit by a pitch.