MLB fun facts!

[RightFieldCoder]

Ben Sheets intentionally walked Ryan Hanigan on 8/14/07. It's was Hanigan's 2nd career at bat.

 

On a technical note, that would have been Hanigan's 2nd career plate appearance. You don't get an at bat for drawing a walk :P

[pitchleague]

I'm finally getting the chance to type this up. Here is the quote re: Rick Ferrell:

"Rick Ferrell was a pretty good catcher form 1929 through 1947, a pretty good farm system director and general manager for Detroit, and, by all accounts, a pretty good guy. Rick played eighteen years (admittedly in eight of these he didn't catch 100 games in a season). He hit .281 lifetime, with twenty-eight career homers. His brother Wes had hit .280 lifetime, with twenty-eight homer. Of course, Wes was a pitcher. While he was still eligible in the writers' balloting, Rick got one vote in 1956, another in 1958, and a third in 1960. For years, reporters covering the Committee on Veterans would tell tales of how its memeber, old sportswriters, players, and executives, would cast 'courtesy votes' for old buddies, knowing full well that these guys would never actually get elected. It was a nice, folksy touch. You know: Hey, Smiley, you didn't get in, but look, I voted for you, old pal, old sport. Everybody was happy but nobody got hurt. Then in 1984, it happened. Apparently everyone case a courtesy vote for Rick Ferrell. Bingo--he's a Hall of Famer."

--from The Big Show. Olbermann and Patrick, 1997.

[flosses like fossas]

despite smacking an nl record 56 homers, hack wilson didn't hit one grand slam on his way to amassing his record-setting 191 rbi.

[Kurt]

Robin Yount batted .455 his Sr year of high school.. Enjoy this photo of yount as a high school ballplayer.. All I got to say is newspaperarchive.com is amazing. Found this and I'm reading all these articles of Molitor playing high school basketball in MN, Ned yost getting married. tons of articles on relatives.. so worth the $16 or so a month.

 

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/c2f258a97f8b607f4d9ba27793bd9692305396f.jpg

[TooLiveBrew]

I couldn't find JBriggs's strange stats thread, where this probably fits better, but it fits here. I see that the THT stats page is only updated through Friday's game, so coming into Saturday's game,

 

Julian Tavarez held the title for lowest FIP on the team this season at 2.46 (Sabathia second at 2.57). Sure, it's over just 7.1 IP, but wow... would not have guessed that. His xFIP (3.09) was second to Sabathia's 3.01

 

Yovani Gallardo had a LOB% of 94.6 in his abbreviated season

 

Ben Sheets's WHIP to this point is 1.13. Dave Bush's is 1.15

 

The Brewers had one player in the MLB's top 20 ranking of GPA -- Ryan Braun, at 20th (.296)