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Happy Pi (π) Day! E-mail
Written by Larry Granillo   
Sunday, 14 March 2010 15:03
ellis_chavez-crop

I tried to find a picture of Evan Longoria standing next to David Price, but I was out of luck. Eric Chavez and Mark Ellis are the best I could do for today's Pi Day. Photo courtesy krismerri.

It's Pi Day, the geekiest holiday of the year. As such, I thought I'd celebrate by re-posting what I wrote last March 14 (or 15th - whatever), as I looked to find the intersection between Pi (π) and baseball. Enjoy!...

In the wake of yesterday's Pi (π) Day celebration (that's 'pi' as in π = 3.14 = March 14 = 3/14), I thought it might be interesting to see if there are any ballplayers who had a 'Pi (π) Career' - that is, they ended their careers with "314 career _____".

To do this, I used the very easy-to-use and very nifty National Pastime Almanac, a tool that allows you to easily look at any player's career or single-season numbers and to easily search through them. I can't recommend it enough.

Anyhow, I decided to look for any pitchers who ended their career with a 3.14 ERA (minimum of 1,000 IP), or with 314 career wins, saves, or complete games. I also looked for any position players who ended their career with a .314 batting average (minimum of 1,000 games played) or with 314 career home runs or doubles. (I chose these stats because they were all positive stats that a long-time player could all realistically achieve) To top it off, I decided to look for players who ended their career with 314 career Win Shares. There are actually only a very few players who meet any of these criteria, so it works out well for us here.

Without further ado, here are the 'Pi (π) Career' players:

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

Pitching
3.14 ERA (min. 1,000 IP): Bert Gallia, Leon Cadore, Tug McGraw, Mike Marshall
314 Wins: Gaylord Perry
314 Complete Games: Joe McGinnity, Burleigh Grimes
314 Saves: Robb Nen

Batting
.314 Average (min. 1,000 Games): Bibb Falk, Cecil Travis, Manny Ramirez*, Nomar Garciaparra*
314 HR: Reggie Smith
314 Doubles: Pete Fox

314 Win Shares: Bill Dickey, Pee Wee Reese, Edd Roush

Personally, I think that these players should be remembered every Pi Day (especially the less familiar names, like Bibb Falk or Bert Gallia). I'd love to hear any other 'Pi (π) Career' values that others might be able to come up with.

 

Comments (3)Add Comment
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Ron R
...
written by Ron R, March 15, 2010
What about stolen bases?
Bill@TDS
...
written by Bill@TDS, March 15, 2010
Andre Dawson had 314 SB, according to BBREF. It also gives Mike Griffin (1887-9smilies/cool.gif as a second player with 314 doubles.

48 players, including Mookie Wilson and Jim Busby, had at least 1000 PA and a .314 OBP. 16, including Miller Huggins and Otis Nixon, managed to slug only .314.

Fun stuff. smilies/smiley.gif
lar @ wezen-ball
...
written by lar @ wezen-ball, March 15, 2010
Thanks for getting that data, Bill. I'm not sure why I didn't include any of those stats originally. When I posted a link to this on Twitter yesterday, Danial from Camden Crazies (http://camdencrazies.com/) pointed out Dawson's 314 SBs as well as Greg Luzinski's career 314 wRAA.

WAR doesn't actually scale into the 300s, but that's only because 10 RAR (Runs Above Replacement) = 1 WAR. If we then use 31.4 WAR to mean 314 RAR, we find: Pat Hentgen, Tim Wallach, and Rico Carty.

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About Me

What's with the name?
"Wezen" is the name of a star in the constellation Canis Major ("The Great Dog"). It's the star that marks the, ahem, point where the dog's tail meets its hindlegs. It's a name that I've always liked the sound of and so I used it around the internet.

When I started this blog, I didn't expect to put a lot of time into it, so I just gave it the first name I could think of. Now I like it, no matter how strange it may sound, and I just love how the new banner and background make use of it.

What's the site about?
There is no real, overriding philosophy guiding the posts here at Wezen-Ball.com. Instead, it's just a place for me to write about what I find interesting in the baseball world. Sometimes that means it'll be original statistical research that I've been working on or some other opinions that I might have. Usually, though, I'll be writing about how a certain player, team, or event from the past was viewed through contemporary accounts.

I do this mostly through the use of my collection of annual baseball preview magazines or other resources available online. So, whether it's looking back to see if Jim Rice was truly "feared"by the people who saw him play, or it's looking back to see how Greg Maddux was viewed early in his career, or if it's just looking back to see what people predicted baseball would be like in the year 2000 (from 1981), you'll find it here.

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