Play Result 23
Another National Pastime Puzzle
Play Result 23
Play result 23 in the National Pastime and APBA world has long been dominated by pitchers.
In both National Pastime and in the traditional APBA card creation approach, result number 23 was limited to pitchers only.
That’s right. In National Pastime, there were precisely 80 players with a single “23” on their cards, all of whom were pitchers:
Play result number 23 is one of two play result numbers that belong only to players who play a certain position. The other one, result 41, comes up 19 times on the 93 infielder cards that were printed. We’ll take a look at that one later.
What 23 Does
23 does different things in each board situation:
With None On Base, it’s a ball.
It’s another ball with a Runner on First. The runner is caught trying to steal second, and is kicked out of the game for arguing.
It’s a strike with a Runner on Second. The runner is thrown out trying to steal third, is injured, and cannot play for the next three games.
When it comes up with a Runner on Third, the runner steals home successfully.
It’s a foul tip with Runners on First and Second. The catcher is injured trying to catch the foul tip, must leave the game, and cannot play for the next five games.
It causes the game to be called because of rain with Runners on First and Third. This is the most famous 23 result, since J. Richard Seitz carried this over to APBA. People used to joke about how rainouts only happened with runners on first and third and the pitcher up to bat.
It’s a bizarre play with Runners on Second and Third. The runner on second is struck by the batted ball and is called out. The batter is safe at first, and the other runner holds third.
Finally, with the Bases Full, it’s a simple strikeout.
As you can tell, it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of “value” this play result number has. The batter stays at the plate in 5 of the 8 situations. He reaches first with runners on second and third, and he strikes out with the bases loaded. In the final situation, with runners on first and third, the game ends prematurely. This is the only play result in all of National Pastime that causes the game to end early.
I can only conclude that pitchers were given a 23 simply because they were pitchers. It’s not really designed to be an out roll per say, since the batter only records an out in the 2 rarest on base scenarios.
How 23 Was Distributed
The next question we have is simple. If all pitchers had a 23, did they all have 23 on the same dice roll?
The answer is no. It’s a frustrating answer, actually. It would be a lot easier to figure out what is going on if it followed a discernible pattern.
This is how the 23 was distributed on pitcher’s batting cards:
There really doesn’t appear to be any easily discernible pattern. Left handed and right handed pitchers have a similar distribution of result number 23.
APBA veterans will note that 23 appears to show up on what we’d consider “hit numbers” — particularly dice roll 15, 25, 35, and 51. 61, however, is almost never a “hit number” in National Pastime, which deepens the mystery a bit.
We’ll take another look next time at these results. In particular, we’re going to take a look at the outliers first, just to see if something strange is going on.