Baseballminutia

There are 216  single stitches on a baseball (which some people call 108  double stitches).

216 reasons to love baseball, 216 tiny threads holding together a 5 ounce sphere that is only 9 inches in circumference.

216 is a random number, I have no idea why it’s not 214 or 218 or 312 stitches, but it’s 216 and if we look at 216 as a number that is larger in the context of the game than the current exalted state it possesses then we’d find the following:

One man with a lifetime batting average of .216  and that would be Bubba Crosby, who had 250 ab’s with the Dodgers and the Yankees and had 54 hits.

Only 9 men have hit .216 in a season, the last 22 years ago and the first was a rookie CF for the Reds in their second year of existence. Cy Young is the only pitcher to hit .216 in a season.

AVERAGE                  YEAR     AVG      AB
Pop Corkhill             1883     .216     375
Jay Bell                 1987     .216     125
Jim Finigan              1956     .216     250
Eddie Pellagrini         1954     .216     125
Dan Costello             1915     .216     125
Cy Young                 1907     .216     125
Willie Crawford          1977     .216     250
Bob O'Farrell            1919     .216     125
Gil Garrido              1971     .216     125

No players have exactly 216 home runs in their career, nine players do have 216 hits in their career, the most famous of them is Tommie Aaron, Hanks brother.

Now if you want to find names that fall next to the number 216 look no farther than the doubles column.. players with 216 career doubles include  the following:

DOUBLES                     2B       AB
Jesse Barfield              216      4759
Bob Allison                 216      5032
Kid Gleason                 216      7452
Julian Javier               216      5722
Johnny Logan                216      5244
Ralph Kiner                 216      5205
Aaron Boone                 216      3858
Freddie Patek               216      5530
Johnny Evers                216      6137
Ken Henderson               216      4553
Johnny Hopp                 216      4260

Question: Who is  Sammy Strang ?

Answer: The only player to have a career total of steals that equals 216

Three hurlers have 216 career wins, they are Wilbur Cooper, Charlie Hough and Curt Schilling, only Curt can change that.

Of all the mne in MLB history who have thrown a pitch only Steven Shell and Russ McKelvy have a lifetime era of … you guessed it, 2.16.

15 pitchers have ended a season with that era, including Dazzy vance with over 300 innings pitched and Brad “The Animal” Lesley with 8.1 innings pitched

Seven men have ended the season with 216 strikeouts they are as follows:

INNINGS PITCHED               YEAR     IP       SO     SO/9 IP
1    Larry Corcoran           1883    473.2      216     4.10
2    Gaylord Perry            1974    322.1      216     6.03
3    Aaron Harang             2006    234.1      216     8.30
4    Kevin Brown              2000    230        216     8.45
5    Jim Maloney              1966    225        216     8.64
6    Jake Peavy               2005    203        216     9.58
7    Sandy Koufax             1962    184        216    10.57

And….. there are 10 men who have 216 as a career total

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       SO     SO/9 IP
1    Nate Andrews              773        216     2.51
2    Fred Mitchell             718        216     2.71
3    Joe Sullivan              588        216     3.31
4    Ray Fontenot              493.2      216     3.94
5    Luis Sanchez              369.2      216     5.26
6    Ryan Bowen                326        216     5.96
7    Wayne Franklin            323        216     6.02
8    Brian Shouse              322.2      216     6.02
9    Julio Mateo               318.1      216     6.11
10   Ryan Vogelsong            315        216     6.17

Only two pitchers have a career total of 216 innings pitched, one was Dick Brodowski and the other was Michael Bacsik, whose father also pitched in the big leagues, he however only pitched 172.2 innings in his career, which is what Oregon Ducks running back Jonathan Stewart rushed for in 2007 to lead the Pac Ten.

But you probably knew that.

I’m not a DH fan, nor am I big fan of the game that pours out of the league that uses it. My first DH experience was with the 1973 Tigers and they used Gates Brown and Frank Howard, both were at the DH stage of their careers and gates it could be argued was always in that stage (Gates only topped 370 ab’s in a season 2 times, yet was on the Tigers for 12 straight years) I found it uninspiring. However the league was different back then and it was lagging behind the faster paced NL game. The DH was never a gimmick and it was suggested as far back as the 1890’s by Connie Mack and others who found the hitting of the pitcher to be nothing to look forward to, nor count on.

I think they were thinking of this when they first proposed the move.

Aaron Harang currently ranks as the worst hitting player in the history of the game if we set the bar at 375 plate appearances, if we drop it to 350 he’s a hair behind Doug Davis. (ops plus -53 to -54)

Nevertheless he’s mired in a reality that screams OUT!!!!

Aaron Harang is the reason the AL has the DH, he’s pitiful… striking out 44% of the time he comes to the dish and he has exactly 2 walks. Any manager who worries about Harang at the plate should be placed under immediate observation. He’s made an out 92.5% of the time he’s approached the plate in major league baseball.

OPS                         OPS      PA       RB       SO       BB       EBH
Aaron Harang               .182      388       33      170        2        3
Dean Chance                .183      759       79      420       30        2
Ben Sheets                 .196      492       51      204       18        3
Bob Buhl                   .220      952      116      389       38        2
Ron Kline                  .222      548       62      221       15        3
Al Benton                  .223      579       58      200        7        7
Ryan Dempster              .224      434       42      154        8        8
Hank Aguirre               .225      427       47      236       14        8
Jose DeLeon                .226      490       56      171       16        2
Jim Deshaies               .230      440       56      186       23        0
BTW here's the list of the best hitting pitchers
OPS                         OPS      PA       RB       SO       BB       EBH
Babe Ruth                  .828      405      139       68       31       38
Tom Parrott                .810      563      194       29       30       49
Wes Ferrell                .797     1345      458      185      129      107
Jack Stivetts              .791     2022      696      136      123      161
Tom Brown                  .759      996      364        0       90       55
Bob Caruthers              .758     1712      644       48      245      107
Erv Brame                  .755      416      133       32       10       31
Charlie Ferguson           .735     1078      392      119      113       56
Ad Gumbert                 .731     1048      352      153       80       67
George Uhle                .722     1498      495      112       98       90

The opening of the 20th century found baseball trying to pin down the games genesis and a great need to label it as an “American” creation was the real goal. In 1905 the Mills Commission set out to do just that.

This past week we celebrated the 101st anniversary of Albert Spalding receiving the letter from the commission that named Abner Doubleday as the creator of the game and the birthplace was placed in Cooperstown New York in 1939. This of course is the current home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Countless hours have been spent in an attempt to debunk the findings of the Commission since its release. By now the general knowledge amongst even the uneducated baseball fan is that it’s a load of bull. Thus it always amuses me when I see items like this one penned by Jane Austen in her novel, Northanger Abbey.

“It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, base-ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books.” 

This  item was touched on in UK Telegraph last month, of course if it was in an American paper it would focus on the obvious, the base-ball and branch off on some other examples. This article instead is more sensible it branches off on some fine Jane Austen links, leaving the base-ball lover to have to turn to Google to learn moreabout the origin of the game, I’ll start you off with this link.