There haven't been many guys like Melvin Mora.

What kind of a guy is Melvin Mora?

Melvin Mora's the kind of guy that, if you'd told a buddy before the season that Melvin Mora would be an All-Star, he'd have said, Who?

Melvin Mora's (probably) the kind of guy that, if you tell a buddy in 2023 that Melvin Mora was once an All-Star, he'll say, Who?

	Melvin Mora leads the American League with a .350 batting average.

Melvin Mora's the kind of guy who, at the age of 31, starts a season with a .249 career batting average in the major leagues but earns an All-Star berth by hitting .352 for the Orioles through the end of June.

Like I said, there haven't been many like him.

How many?

Before I answer that question (in a limited way), let me stress that I'm not talking about guys like Ron Coomer and Greg Olson (the catcher, not the closer with the killer curveball), who were All-Stars because the manager needed to fill a position and/or there had to be somebody from their team. (Remember Joe Girardi making the 2000 National League All-Star team, merely because he was the first catcher who happened to answer his phone?)

No, I'm talking about guys like Melvin Mora, who came out of nowhere to earn their All-Star berths with stellar performances in the first half of the season.

And I haven't found many. Going back to 1970 -- because that's as far back as I can get month-by-month hitting stats, courtesy of Retrosheet -- I found only six players who fit my criteria. Here are those six (plus Mora), along with their batting averages through June of their All-Star seasons:

                   
1970 B. Grabarkewitz  .340
1988 Gerald Perry      .332
1991 Felix Jose        .332
1992 Mike Sharperson   .338
1995 Gary DiSarcina    .329
1999 Tony Fernandez    .393
2003 Melvin Mora       .352

What was so surprising about these guys? Here's the same table, but with each player's career batting average entering the season in question:

   
                             Change (%)
1970 B. Grabarkewitz  .092    +269
1988 Gerald Perry      .261     +27     
1991 Felix Jose        .283     +17
1992 Mike Sharperson   .283     +19
1995 Gary DiSarcina    .242     +36
1999 Tony Fernandez    .285     +40
2003 Melvin Mora       .249     +41

Billy Grabarkewitz's .092 batting average is misleading, because that's only 65 at-bats; when he made the All-Star team in 1970, he was still very nearly (but not quite) a rookie.

(And no, I can't explain the 17-season gap between Grabarkewitz and Gerald Perry. It might be due to shoddy methodology, though.)

I tossed in Tony Fernandez as something of a wild card. He was, of course, for many years a fine player who saw action in four All-Star Games from 1986 through 1992. But then came a long, long stretch when Fernandez was reduced to part-time duty, and he even missed the entire 1996 season with an injury.

And then he batted .393 through June of 1999, and people wondered if he might finish the season batting .400.

He didn't. In fact, here are the players listed above (not including Mora), with their batting averages from July 1 through the end of the season, along with the percentage change from the first half.

                   
                             Change (%)
1970 B. Grabarkewitz  .248     -27
1988 Gerald Perry      .275     -17
1991 Felix Jose        .281     -15
1992 Mike Sharperson   .263     -22
1995 Gary DiSarcina    .274     -17
1999 Tony Fernandez    .252     -36

Players who come out of nowhere do, it seems, tend to return to nowhere in the second half of the season. These were all decent major-league players who got hot for three months, so hot that they couldn't be ignored when it came time to fill the All-Star rosters. But they were flukes, in a sense, and not one of them ever played in another All-Star Game. I think it's reasonable to think Melvin Mora might bat in the neighborhood of .280 in the second half, if things go well.

Of course, Melvin Mora might be different. He's already a truly rare player, but if he can maintain his outstanding production in the second half of this season, and then make another All-Star team down the road ... well, then he might be something close to unique.

But all that's in the future. For now, let's simply enjoy Melvin Mora for exactly what he looks like: the new Felix Jose.

Senior writer Rob Neyer writes four columns per week during the baseball season. His new book, "Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups," has just been published by Fireside. For more information about the book and Rob's upcoming book signings in Seattle (June 28), Portland (June 30), and Denver (July 9), visit Rob's Web site.