Against The Odds

Unusual results in replays

Welcome back to The Baseball Replay Journal!  I’m still working on getting things set up to be just right.  I appreciate your patience and your continued visits.

That Would Never Happen

15 years ago or so, back when the Diamond Mind Baseball forums were a happening place, we’d frequently see visitors enter the boards to complain about some random player hitting a home run in a replay when he never hit one in real life.

It’s a problem to take seriously.  Fans of baseball simulations seem to be particularly sensitive to the issue of “the wrong guy” going deep.  Even when we would respond with video clips of Mickey Lolich hitting a home run in the 1968 World Series – a pitcher who never had homered before at the professional level, nor ever would again – the frustration would remain.

In memory of those days, I like to look for examples of unusual events taking place in Diamond Mind.  You’ll find them if you look.

HBP

Bud Stewart, who you likely never heard of, came up to hit 3rd in the first inning of the Senator’s second game of the season.  He faced the famous junkball pitcher Eddie Lopat, a pitcher you probably know about if you’re reading this blog, and was promptly plunked by the second pitch.

Doesn’t seem so unusual at first glance, does it?  Well, the odds were certainly against it.

As you can see, Stewart managed to be struck by a pitch only 3 times in real life in 1949, despite 388 plate appearances.  Only one of those 3 beanings came at the hands of a left-handed pitcher – which is precisely what just happened in his first at bat of his second game.

Lopat himself wasn’t exactly wild, hitting only 5 of the 907 batters he faced in 1949.  That’s not hard to understand; Lopat had excellent control, with a low walk total in an era dominated by bases on balls.

It would be very unusual for Lopat to plunk Stewart in the first inning of the home opener at Yankee Stadium.  And yet that is exactly what happened here.  Is this any worse than a man who hit no home runs in real life hitting one out all of a sudden?

HR

We had another somewhat rare feat in the same game.  No, we didn’t see any players with no home runs in real life hit one out.  We did see a Yankee hitter without much power managed to hit two homers, though.

Cliff Mapes is another player you’ve probably never heard of.  He managed to hang on with the Yankees from late 1948 through the first third of the 1951 season, before finding himself relegated to baseball obscurity.  He managed to hit 38 home runs in his less-than-average career – 38 home runs in 1,383 plate appearances, no less.

And yet he managed to hit two home runs on opening day for the Yankees.

I suppose the feat here is not quite as rare or unusual as I make it sound.  Both home runs did come against right-handed pitching, after all – and he did hit 6 of his 7 1949 home runs against righties in real life.

But, seriously – this is a pretty rare event.

Even the hapless Washington pitcher Dick Welteroth (another extremely obscure player) wasn’t known for giving up numerous home runs.  He had a bad 1949, which you can clearly see in this screenshot.  Still, 6 home runs given up in 464 batters faced isn’t exactly a record setting mark.

It just goes to show you that you never know what might happen.