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November 26, 2012

Baseball Therapy

The 2012 Silly Awards

by Russell A. Carleton

Let's get a little silly. The Gold Gloves, Cy Youngs, MVPs, Managers of the Year, Hank Aaron Awards, and the Greg Spira Internet Baseball Awards (may Greg's memory remain eternally) have all been given out. It's time to appreciate the befuddling side of baseball. The awards that should be given out, but aren't.

Anyone can do something that makes you say "Wow!" It takes someone special to do something that makes you say "Why did you waste your time looking that up?" It's time for the 2012 Silly Awards, sponsored by Lobster Cola. (And if you get that reference, you win a billion points.)

Grounding Out for the Cycle
There are the players who hit for the cycle by getting a single, double, triple, and home run all in the same game. I once heard someone say that the hardest thing about hitting for the cycle is that you have to get four hits in the same game, and that doesn't happen all that often, much less that each of the four be a different type of hit.

My mind wandered to ask a different question. There are plenty of batters who go 0-for-4. Did any of them ground out for the cycle? That is, hit a ground ball to the third baseman, shortstop, second baseman, and first baseman all in the same game.

Turns out that the answer is yes. Depending how you want to define things, eight players hit ground balls on which an out was recorded to each of the four infield positions during a game, although some of them were fielders' choices. Because it's my award, I'm going to eliminate those fielder's choices from consideration. We're left with three winners on this one.

On April 24th, Jeff Francouer of the Royals grounded out to Indians first baseman Casey Kotchman in the second inning, to third baseman Jack Hannahan in the fourth, to shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera in the fifth, and to second baseman Jason Kipnis in the eighth. For good measure, he grounded into a 5-4 fielder's choice in the 9th.