Baseball Trivia of Various Degrees of Significance

Major League Baseball has has tucked another season under its belt and we're headed into the postseason. This weekend the Wildcard Playoffs will eliminate four of the 16 teams in contention for the World Championship. The division playoff will follow and eventually the World Series. 

As I like to say, I've been a baseball fan since my infancy. My parents adorned my crib with four teddy bears, each named after the starting rotation for the then Cleveland Indians who are now the Cleveland Guardians. Three of my four teddy bears became Hall Of Famers. Cleveland had some great teams back then. 

So, to mark the moment... a little baseball trivia is on the menu.

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In 2019 the Washington Nationals won the World Series. Today, only three years later, they have the worst record in baseball. What happened?

What a surprise (for me) to learn that Ty Cobb was only second in most career triples. First place in that category was his teammate Sam Crawford, the only player with over 300 triples (309 total), a record that will likely never be broken.

To give you an idea of how much fear Barry Bonds generated in opposing pitchers, check out these stats. In 2004 he was intentionally walked 120 times, which is 25 more walks than the American League leader in walks. 

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That's nothing compared to this: In 2004 Bonds got on base more times than he had at-bats. Baseball is funny in that way. If you go to the plate and draw a walk, then it is not counted as an at-bat. 

In my first year of Babe Ruth League, for example, I struck out 50% of the time and walked 50% of the time. I hadn't hit my growth spurt yet, so even though I had been a Little League all star, I was not ready for the next level. And yet, based on my record that year my on-base percentage was .500 even though I never once hit the ball into play. My record: 15 walks, 15 strike outs. 

Barry Bonds did hit the ball in play, a lot. And he got on base a lot... in fact, he reached base more times (376) than he had at-bats (373). In addition to those 120 intentional walks he walked another 112 times (by not swinging at bad pitches), plus had 129 hits, was hit by a pitch 9 times and got on base via an error 6 times.

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In 1999 The Sporting News named Ty Cobb as #3 on their list of all-time greatest ballplayers. 

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Pitcher Mickey Lolich played for 16 years and never hit a home run in over 1,000 major league regular-season plate appearances, but in his first ever World Series at-bat in 1968 he homered off St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Nelson Briles. He stepped to the plate 452 times prior to his World Series homer, then another 565 after and failed to hit another.
(Source: Mike Lynch on Quora)

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April 23, 199: Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in the same inning. I think the interesting thing is that the pitcher, Chan Ho Park, was still pitching when Tatis came to the plate again with the bases loaded. 

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In 1918, while Babe Ruth was with the Red Sox, he pinch hit in the tenth inning, a runner on base. Back in those days, the game would be over as soon as the winning run crossed the plate, so when Ruth hit a blast out of the park the game was over before he rounded the bases. His homer only counted as a hit, with a run batted in, and not a homer. 

I know that many people think of the Babe as a beefy, somewhat lumbering power hitter loping around the bases. Evidently he had more quickness and agility than we've imagined. Babe Ruth had 10 inside the park home runs in his career, four in 1923 alone!

This season, the big man Aaron Judge finally broke the American League single season home run record. Roger Maris did it '61 with 61. This past week Judge made it 62.

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In 1879, the Cincinnati Gazette wrote, "The baseball mania has run its course. It has no future as a professional endeavor." Maybe some day, but that day is not yet.