September 6th, 2008 — MLB
The countdown search provided an opportunity to identify all the instances of pitchers not batting ninth in the starting lineup. (Standard Retrosheet caveats apply: data runs from 1954-2007, and some games prior to 1974 are missing.)
There are a few periods during which it was used as a consistent strategy.
- Bobby Bragan batted his Pirate pitchers in the 7 spot for the last couple weeks of the 1956 season.
- Lou Boudreau hit the pitcher eighth during the first half of Kansas City’s 1957 season. He was fired soon after.
- Tony La Russa revived the idea in the second half of the 1998 Cardinal campaign.
- TLR took it up again in the last month of 2007. Of course, Tony has been using the pitcher in the 8 slot all season this year. Ned Yost was doing the same thing in Milwaukee, but gave it up in late May.
Some individual pitchers have occasionally batted earlier in the lineup due to their hitting prowess: Don Larsen (.242 career BA), Bob Lemon (.232), and Dontrelle Willis (.234).
The big drought was 1958-1997, during which I find only six occurances.
Cesar Tovar was the only pitcher to lead off the game. Of course, that was his nine-position game in 1968.
Ken Brett batted eighth for the White Sox in front of 3,278 at Comisky late in the 1976 season. That’s the only example I can find of an AL team not using the DH at the start of the game.
The complete list appears after the jump.
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September 6th, 2008 — MLB
I use numeric indicators when writing a lineup: 1 for pitcher, 2 for catcher, 3 for firstbaseman, etc. Looking at a lineup the other day I wondered how often there had been a perfect “countdown” lineup in MLB, that is, rightfielder (9) leading off, followed by centerfielder (8), all the way down to pitcher (1) batting ninth.
It gave me an opportunity to work with the Retrosheet game logs, as oppposed to the event files, which I’ve used before. I was a bit disappointed to find that the lineup data in the game logs is pretty much limited to the years for which there are event files, basically 1954-2007. No biggie.
Well, I found not one single instance of a 987654321 lineup! I found two examples of 987653421, but that was about the closest. Strange that it’s never happened in the last 50-odd years.
The most common lineup in the period is 847395261, which looks about right.
August 31st, 2008 — MLB
A couple of pix taken on 2008-08-30. Click on the thumbnails to view.
The interior of current Yankee Stadium: 
The exterior of new Yankee Stadium: 
box score
August 13th, 2008 — MLB
While looking for home-run games, I ran across this game, because it came up as a game with no runs, and, therefore, a good candidate for incorrect parsing of the Retrosheet event file. It’s a 0-0 tie between the Mets and the Phillies on Saturday, October 2, 1965 at Shea. It went 18 innings, and, incredibly, each starter went 15 innings! Those are a couple of real baseball players! Let’s meet them, shall we?
Chris Short pitched for 15 years, all but one for Phils. His 132 wins for Philly puts him at #4 on the all-time Phillies win list, trailing only Steve Carlton, Robin Roberts, and Grover Cleveland Alexander.
Rob Gardner was born in Binghamton, NY. 1965 was his first year in the bigs. This game accounted for more than half of his innings pitched in ‘65. Garnder nothced only 14 wins over eight seasons with six teams.
So, why was the game stopped? It was the second game of a doubleheader, the last week of the season, and neither team was in contention, but that shouldn’t matter, right? This page talks of a “curfew.” Looks like there used to be a 1 AM curfew in the AL, but maybe this was a legal curfew for kids down in the city?
On the flip side, I saw the last half of the 19-17 Red Sox win over the Rangers last night. Stat of the Day did an entry on it, listing large numbers of runs in a losing effort. The most extreme was this 23-22 Phillies/Cubs game in 1979. Nice. Three homers by Kingman in the losing effort.
August 11th, 2008 — MLB, stats
I was watching a Cardinals game the other day—can’t remember exactly which one—and after a few innings the only runs were off solo homers. I hate games like that. I don’t mind a few taters, but small ball is more fun. It got me wondering: How many games have all their runs knocked in by homers? And how many games have no home runs? I took a guess at both numbers. You have a guess. I’ll wait.
Ready? OK, continue reading.
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August 4th, 2008 — Uncategorized
Hadn’t been over to The Onion for a while. Now they’ve got baseball coverage! Great stuff.
August 4th, 2008 — tabletop baseball
Custom-perforated stock available from PerforatedPaper.com.
July 20th, 2008 — Strat-O-Matic, tabletop baseball
I recently acquired some old baseball mags from the time I started following the game. The 1974 Street & Smith’s yearbook was a particularly important specimen, as it was there I first saw anything about tabletop baseball. The APBA ad must have grabbed my imagination more than the others, because I sent away for their free brochure and sample cards, and soon afterwards ordered the game.
Looking back from 2008, I’m surprised at how many games were advertising. Who runs print ads nowadays?
My favorite bit is in the APBA ad from another energy crunch 35 years ago:
Street & Smith’s 1974 Yearbook:
June 1973 Baseball Digest:
July 12th, 2008 — MLB
Click on the pic for an album of pix taken at Shea.
box score
June 22nd, 2008 — video, MLB
June 18th, 2008 — tabletop baseball
A very old d20. Only $17,925.
June 8th, 2008 — Uncategorized
SimMatchup plays quick simulated games between any two historical teams.
June 5th, 2008 — tabletop baseball
A few ads for baseball card games from Baseball Magazine sometime in the teens.
May 30th, 2008 — MLB
In 1961 & 1962, the Cubs used a rotating group of managers. Behold the College of Coaches!
May 28th, 2008 — tabletop baseball
Ran across this site that sells double-sided APBA cards—vs. L on one side, vs. R on the other. Seems obvious now, but I certainly never thought of it.
May 27th, 2008 — stats, ABL
The Pythagorean winning percentage is a measure developed by Bill James to estimate a team’s winning percentage based on runs scored and runs against. (It was named after Pythagoras, the famed Greek Sabermatrician.)
At the half-way point of the ABL regular season, the Pythagorean winning percentages are listed below. (I used the 1.83 exponent used by Baseball Reference.) The results are sorted by Pythagorean wins, the number of wins expected based on the runs scored and runs against.
The difference between the actual wins and the Pythagorean wins is a measure of how “lucky” a team was. It indicates the teams that scored their runs in the situations that won games. And the teams that didn’t. Sorted by Pythagorean win difference, the table below shows the lucky teams at the top and the unlucky ones at the bottom.
May 26th, 2008 — Strat-O-Matic
The 15 Division B games are complete in the Past Seasons Tournament. The 1964 Phillies took the division.
DIVISION B
W L RS RA RD
1964 Phillies 4 1 19 7 +12
1974 Rangers 3 2 23 7 +16
1968 Cardinals 3 2 15 15 0
1966 Dodgers 3 2 10 9 +1
1969 Orioles 2 3 14 21 -7
1976 Royals 0 5 10 32 -22
May 12th, 2008 — MLB
Digitized copies of Baseball Magazine, 1908-1920, searchable at the site of LA84, a sports foundation endowed by the profits from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. (!)
April 18th, 2008 — tabletop baseball
April 7th, 2008 — ABL, Triple Play Baseball
A companion to the average batter card, here is the average pitcher card. This is a bit of a hack—there’s no adjustment between starters & relievers. The pool is 107 pitchers, made up from the best of the draft, the Perfectos, and most pitchers from the teams I’ve played so far.
vs L vs R
--------- ---------
500 - 519 WP? 500 - 519
520 - 547 Range IF 520 - 545
548 - 573 Range OF 546 - 573
574 - 599 EF 574 - 603
600 - 616 RG 604 - 617
617 - 642 1B 618 - 645
643 - 669 EF 646 - 675
670 - 686 RG 676 - 690
687 - 704 SG 691 - 705
705 - 707 HB 706 - 711
708 - 734 1B 712 - 739
735 - 753 2B 740 - 755
754 - 776 Deep! 756 - 776
777 - 803 EF/Tired? 777 - 807
804 - 862 K 808 - 867
863 - 914 K/Tired? 868 - 920
915 - 965 BB 921 - 954
966 - 999 DP 955 - 999
Here are the range numbers:
vs L vs R
------ ------
20.0 WP? 20.0
28.4 Range IF 26.2
25.7 Range OF 27.6
26.1 EF 30.0
17.0 RG 14.5
26.2 1B 27.8
26.4 EF 30.3
17.4 RG 14.8
17.7 SG 15.1
3.7 HB 5.7
26.6 1B 28.3
18.9 2B 15.8
23.5 Deep! 21.3
26.7 EF/Tired? 30.7
59.0 K 60.2
51.8 K/Tired? 52.7
50.9 BB 33.7
34.4 DP 45.2
