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June 8, 2006

Schrodinger's Bat

Swing and Miss

by Dan Fox

"Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player."
--Unknown

Every fan knows that Babe Ruth struck out over 1,300 times to go along with his 714 home runs. Pete Rose made almost 10,000 outs in his career. And last week SABR members enjoyed a lively discussion on the their listserve discussing the players who made the most outs in a season (a hint: "Omar the Outmaker" takes three of the top ten spots).

Failure is inherent in the game, a fact that George Will, in a recent interview with our own Will Carroll, credits with making baseball "especially suited for a nation in which the politics are democratic." This is so because the game, like our republic, requires both the patience to endure that failure and the compromise of "settling for the half loaf." After all, even the best hitters fail 65% of the time, and the best teams lose 60 times per season.

Those who write about the game certainly strive to hit the mark in excess of 65% of the time, but from time to time we too strike out. So this week, we'll look at three swinging strikes from your humble author to go along with a quick take on the humidity of the front range.

Strike One: Posada's Prowess

In each of the last two columns I referenced Jorge Posada's May 17th homerun to cap the Yanks 14-13 comeback. And both times I mentioned that the Yankees probability of winning before the homerun was 46% making Posada's blow worth 54% in terms of WX.