Comments for Is 2009 the Year of the "Feat"? at http://www.wezen-ball.com , comment 1 to 16 out of 16 comments http://www.wezen-ball.com Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:06:29 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-1161 d States. As the recognized governing body for basketball in the nike free shoes nike running shoes nike free running United States by the Internati - cheap ugg boots Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:00:59 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-1160 nal Basketball Fe nike free shoes nike running shoes nike free running deration (FIBA) - cheap ugg boots Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:00:24 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-814 2010ZQ [url=http://www.jerseysstoreonline.com/]About USA Basketball[/url] Based in Colorado Springs, Colo., USA Basketball is a nonprofit organization and the national governing body for men's and women's basketball in the United States. As the recognized governing body for basketball in the United States by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), USA Basketball is responsible for the selection, training and fielding of USA teams that compete in FIBA sponsored international basketball competitions, [url=http://www.herveleger.us.com/]Online MBT shoes shop with the Discount Price[/url] - About USA Basketball Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:30:18 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-27 You're right to devalue the unassisted triple play, since skill has nothing to do with it. U/A triple plays are rare not because of skill but because the CIRCUMSTANCES are rare. When it comes to ranking the difficulty of the others, tho, it needn't be a subjective exercise. The difficulty of a feat, over a sufficiently large number of opportunities, is correlated with how frequently that feat occurs. If you define your opportunities, you can make some objective estimates. Let's assume that for each game played, 2 opportunities exist for a perfect game or non-perfect no hitter, and -- nowadays -- 16 or 18 (NL and AL, respectively) for a 4-HR game or cycle (the average number of 'batter starts' dating back to 1900 is 16.45 per game, adjusting for the advent of the DH rule). Since 1900, there have been about 200,000 games played, totaling approximately 396,000 pitcher starts and 3.25 million batter starts. Since we know how many of each feat has actually occurred, we get the following frequencies: 4 HR: 1 per 250,441 opportunities perfecto: 1 per 24,733 cycle: 1 per 13,289 non-perfect no-no: 1 per 1,930 So, looked at per opportunity, the perfect game is about 10x more frequent than a 4 HR game. The cycle is 19x more frequent, and the no-hitter 130x moreso. Personally, I discard the cycle as primarily luck also. Yes, the hitter has to be able to hit for power and has to have a good deal of speed, but triples are rare and the cycle does appear to be more an outcome of luck than of skill. I watched Pedroia hit a HR, triple and two doubles in Tampa last year and a reporter had the temerity to ask him if he'd been tempted to stop at 1B when he doubled the second time. Ridiculous. Looked at from another angle, what are the odds of a spectator seeing each of these feats? This differs from the opportunities-based approach, because two pitchers and 16-18 non-pitching batters. For the spectator, each of them is an opportunity. Those odds are: 4 HR: 1 per 15,220 games perfecto: 1 per 12,367 non-perfect no-no: 1 per 965 cycle: 1 per 808 So if you're a player, the order of difficulty (or at least rarity, greatest to least) goes: 4-HR, perfecto, cycle, non-perfect no-no. If you're a fan and care more about the odds of actually seeing a feat accomplished, it goes: 4-HR, perfecto, non-perfect no-no, cycle. - Brian Myers Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:03:33 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-23 @ The Common Man Another great "futility" feat is hitting into four double plays in the same game. What makes it notable is that of the two people to accomplish it, one is a Hall of Famer and the other is one of the best managers of our generation -- so one wonders if he would have pinch hit for himself if he was managing himself: Goose Goselin -- 1934 Joe Torre -- 1975 Funny related fact -- the top six career leaders in most double plays are all Hall of Famers: (1) Cal Ripken Jr. (2) Hank Aaron (3) Carl Yastrzemski (4) Dave Winfield (5) Eddie Murray (6) Jim Rice... @ Larry G Your criticism about the distinction of "records" versus "feats" is actually very fair. For instance, I certainly agree that "record" is a better description of Seaver's 10 strike outs in a row. Nonetheless, I still like it because the guy was one of the greatest pitchers of all time and it really is an amazing statistic, and it's sort of elegant to see it remain a "record" (or "feat" if you will) almost 40 years after it was accomplished. For the same reason, I have to agree that 20 strike outs in a game is as much a record as a feat -- but I consider it a feat, because I predict some day a pitcher will record 21 (or more) strike outs, but those who first reached 20 should and will still be celebrated. One other great "skill" feat, that doesn't solve the "year of the feat" issue but which is definitely worthy of note, is 10 (or more) RBIs in a single game, accomplished only 13 times by a pretty eclectic group of hitters: Wilbert Robinson - 06-10-1892 - 11 RBIs Jim Bottomley - 09-24-1924 - 12 RBIs Tony Lazzeri - 05-24-1936 - 11 RBIs Phil Weintraub - 04-30-1944 - 11 RBIs Rudy York - 07-27-1946 - 10 RBIs Walker Cooper - 07-06-1949 - 10 RBIs Norm Zauchin - 05-27-1955 - 10 RBIs Reggie Jackson - 06-14-1969 - 10 RBIs Fred Lynn - 06-18-1975 - 10 RBIs Mark Whiten - 09-07-1993 - 12 RBIs Nomar Garciaparra - 05-10-1999 - 10 RBIs Alex Rodriguez - 04-26-2005 - 10 RBIs Garret Anderson - 08-21-2007 - 10 RBIs - Monte Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:07:10 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-22 @Tommy, I completely agree. There is something different about the "counting feats" as opposed to the "completion/perfection feats". Though the elegance of the 20-K feat makes it a little different. @Monte, That's a good list there, thanks. I appreciate it. I might be arguing semantics, but I think I'd classify some of those as "records" more than "feats". Though I suppose it is pretty arbitrary. Keep the feats coming, though. If there are enough, we might be able to determine a pretty clear winner as "yer of the feat". I'm feeling pretty good about 2009, though... - lar @ wezen-ball Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:27:58 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-21 I have nothing really to add to the discussion, Larry, I just wanted to say how cool I think this entire topic is. I like futility feats a lot (probably because I was such a bad baseball player), so Robby Thompson's four CSs are pretty exciting to me. - The Common Man Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:12:17 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-20 I think four home runs is a fantastic feat (especially "Big" Ed Delahanty's four inside-the-park HRs), but there's nothing complete about it. It's just a sufficiently high bar that few people have achieved. However, perfect games (and to a lesser extent no-hitters and unassisted triple plays) represent a certain maximum of performance, and so for that reason I think they're slightly more elegant. But not necessarily requiring more authentic talent. - Tommy Bennett Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:38:29 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-19 @ underheight I agree with your assessment of two grand slams in the same game as being worthy of inclusion -- and moreso than most of the other categories. However, as a correction to your assessment, your source indicates Jim Northrup hit two in 1968, so that years appears to belong with both 2009 and 2003 in the lists cited above. @ Larry G I have two truly "skill" feats that are rarer than a no hitter, perfect game, four home runs, hitting for the cycle or unassisted triple plays: First, is there are only five instances of a pitcher throwing 20 strike-outs in a game, and I think that deserves greater accolades than even a perfect game: (1) Tom Cheney -- 1962 (16 innings) (2) Roger Clemens -- 1986 (3) Roger Clemens -- 1996 (4) Kerry Wood -- 1998 (5) Randy Johnson -- 2001 (11 inning game, but Johnson struck out 20 in 9 innings) Second, is three sacrifice flies by the same player in the same game, accomplished only ten times: Ernie Banks, Chicago 06-02-1961 Russ Nixon, Boston 08-31-1965 Don Mattingly, New York 05-03-1986 Vince Coleman, St. Louis 05-01-1986 Candy Maldonado, San Francisco 08-29-1987 George Bell, Toronto 08-14-1990 Chad Kreuter, Detroit 07-30-1994 Juan Gonzalez, Texas 07-03-1999 Edgar Martinez, Seattle 08-03-2002 Jose Lopez, Seattle 4-15-08 There are several signficant individual "feats" that have only occurred once in all of MLB history by a single player. They probably deserve their own category for "feat years". Among my personal favorites are: (1) Two grand slams in the same inning -- Fernando Tatis -- 1999 (already noted above) (2) Back-to-back no hitters -- Johnny Vander Meer -- 1938 (3) Grand Slam on first major league pitch -- Kevin Kouzmanoff -- 2006 (4) Caught stealing four times in the same game -- Robby Thompson -- 1986. Note, this was a 12 inning game, so the feat apparently still has not been accomplished in a nine inning game. (5) Stealing the same base twice in the same inning -- Germany Schaefer -- 1908 (6) Ten Consecutive Strike-Outs -- Tom Seaver -- 1970 - Monte Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:57:10 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-18 Great points, all, eapecially that list from underheight. Thanks for that. When I made the list, I was only thinking of the four "main" feats that most people think about. But then the 4-homer game crossed my mind and I kind of knew that there were a bunch more that I had forgotten. I'm glad that you guys have been able to come up with some of them. And, remarkably, many of them have already happened this year. So, though we may remember the year for other reasons, this could legitimately be remembered as the "year of the feat". - lar @ wezen-ball Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:59:09 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-17 Two grand slams in the same inning. Done only once by Fernando Tatis with St.Louis. Straight cycle (1B, 2B, 3B, HR) or reverse cycle--ever been done? - George Waas Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:06:29 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-16 If someone really wanted to slog thru it, Baseball-Almanac.com has a ton of feat pages, which are easily accessible via a nice Google search: site:baseball-almanac.com inurl:feats or just click on this link: [url]http://tinyurl.com/lvrpfs[/url] Google shows 89 results. I don't have time at the moment to dig thru all of them, but ones of note are: -- 3 pitch innings -- 4 strikeout innings (21 times, including THREE times in 2003(!), none in 2009 so far) -- 9 pitches, 9 strike innings -- 6 hits in a 9 inning game (three times so far in 2009; none in 2003) -- Home Runs by Pitchers Off Each Other in the Same Game (very rare in modern era, last time in 2002) -- Stealing Second, Stealing Third, Stealing Home in same inning (once in 2009 by Jayson Werth of the Phillies; not surpisingly Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner are tied with the major league record, each doing it 4 times in their careers) - underheight Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:55:48 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-15 This is a great jumping off point for many discussions. Perfect game = four homers, rare, memorable, not fluky. Stealing all four bases in one game is about as hard, I'd wager. All three require a great performance, plus some luck. I wonder what a matching fielding feat would be - assists at all four bases in one game? probably never happened . . . I like this thread. - Dave B Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:36:07 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-14 Josh Willingham of the Nationals hit 2 grand slams on July 27, 2009 against the Brewers. That's rarer than a perfect game. 13 two grand slam games; 18 perfect games. [url]http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats11.shtml[/url] [url]http://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/piperf.shtml[/url] The only other year on your final qualifier list that also had a two grand slam game was 2003. Bill Mueller of the Red Sox did it on July 29, 2003 against the Texas Rangers. Granted, there is a fair amount of luck involved in that situation, too. But it's still a special rare feat, making 2009 definitely a "year of the feat" - underheight Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:34:06 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-13 Does stealing your way around the bases count as a banner feat? - GrandSlamSingle Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:25:28 +0100 http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009-articles/august/2009-the-year-of-the-qfeatq.html#comment-12 Agreed with you on your ranking of the talent involved in banner feats. Also, I've always though the cycle was kind of stupid. If a guy collects a 1B/2B/3B/HR he's done something "special," but if he gets a 3B/2B and 2 HRs, then no big deal? - Christopher Bates Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:15:02 +0100