Quiz – Penultimate Pitchers (solved) |

The players in this quiz are the only live ball era pitchers with an unusual game accomplishment. What is it?

Rk	Player
1	Orlando Hernandez
2	Bartolo Colon
3	Kenny Rogers
4	David Wells
5	Joe Berry
6	Diomedes Olivo

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/20/2014.

Congratulations to RJ! He knew that these pitchers didn’t finish their careers until after they had stroked their first career extra-base hit, at age 40 or older. Those career first games are after the jump.

Rk	Player	Age ▾	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	XBH	RBI	BOP	Pos Summary
1	Diomedes Olivo	43.091	1962-04-23	PIT	NYM	L 1-9	1	1	0	1	1	0	1	0	9	P
2	Bartolo Colon	41.025	2014-06-18	NYM	STL	W 3-2	3	1	1	1	1	0	1	0	9	P
3	Kenny Rogers	40.213	2005-06-11	TEX	FLA	L 5-6	3	3	0	1	0	1	1	1	9	P
4	Joe Berry	40.200	1945-07-04 (2)	PHA	SLB	L 5-6	2	2	0	1	1	0	1	0	9	P
5	Orlando Hernandez	40.192	2006-04-21	ARI	LAD	L 3-6	2	2	0	1	1	0	1	0	9	P
6	David Wells	40.017	2003-06-06	NYY	CHC	W 5-3	4	4	0	1	1	0	1	0	9	P

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/23/2014.

Colon’s double last week makes him the second-oldest pitcher with a first extra-base hit. If Bartolo returns for the 2015 season he will continue the pattern of this group, all of whom pitched at least one more season after their first XBH.

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Voomo Zanzibar

10 years ago

Losing a game
in which they also blew a save
by giving up a homer
to the only batter they faced…
…yet somehow they were the 2nd to last pitcher to pitch.

(while also being fat, skinny, from the Caribbean, or named after Kenny Rogers)

Hartvig

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

I was going to go with being mistaken as the guy who sung “You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me, Lucille” but Berry died about 2 decades too soon for that….

Mike L

Doug must have had to exhume these names. All these folk pitched into their 40’s.

Joe Berry pitches 15 years in the minors.
Gets a cuppa at age 37.
Then another full year at AA, pitching 236 innings.

Rookie year, age 39.
Leads the league in saves.
111 IP
0.907 WHIP
3.1 WAR

Repeats the performance at age 40.
League average at 41.

Back to the minors, player-manages the Vernon Dusters, and finishes in Corpus Christi at age 46.

On the minor circuit:
803 games
3869 IP

Hit a double at age 40 or above?

Reply to RJ

Or more likely, pitchers who had their first extra base hit as a 40+ year-old.

Author

Doug

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Way to go, RJ!

Reply to Doug

Colon’s double was fresh in the memory, so I figured it might have something to do with batting. I noticed that none of these guys had many extra base hits, so I tried to find some other feat that occurred in their XBH games. The age connection only came to me later. Mike L’s comment was probably the trigger.

Albanate

Colon went nine years between hits. Has anyone ever had a longer gap between hits?

Reply to Albanate

Minnie Miñoso. 🙂

oneblankspace

1964 to 1976 with a total of 0 GP in the years in between

JasonZ

I will see your Minnie Minoso and raise you a Nick Altrock. Nick Altrock debuted with the Louisville Colonels in the National League, 1898. Looking around the field, Altrock saw the man who would become the greatest shortstop in baseball history. Honus Wagner. In 1898, Wagner logged time at 1B, 2B and 3B, but not a single game at shortstop. Who knew?! Nick Altrock was a pitcher, a good one too. He won 20 games for the 1906 World Series Champion Chicago White Sox, “Hitless Wonders”, (.230 team BA). This capped a three year stretch in which Altrock went 62-39… Read more »

Reply to JasonZ

Great stuff Jason. This is the first I’ve heard of Altrock; his SABR bio is well worth a read for those also unfamiliar with the man. Here’s the bit about his late-career hits: “Nick remains the oldest player ever to hit a triple, doing it in 1924, when he was 48. The newspaper accounts claimed the outfielders weren’t running very fast after the ball, but Nick still whaled it a long way. He hit a clean single in 1929 at the age of 53, and made his last appearance in 1933 at the age of 57. That makes Nick the… Read more »

Altrock had a little help from the opposition, such as the pitcher lobbing the ball (1929) and fielders neglecting to field Altrock’s pop-up (1924).

His exploits in his late 40s and 50s were all part of last-game-of-the-season hijinks, a tradition that disappeared at some point (it was still happening in the 1950s – check out Stan Musial’s pitching record).

You are correct about that late season tradition.

Punctuated by George Herman Ruth picking up
complete game victories for the Yankees in both
1930 and 1933.

Prior to this he last pitched in 1921 when he went
2-0.

In between he hit some homers.

Charlie Hough went 12 seasons (1981-92) without a hit, then had 6 in 1993-94, aged 45-46.

Richard Chester

Doug: Do you mind telling me how you retrieved those 6 names? I did it but I have noticed that in the past we have had different methods for PI runs. First I got a list of pitchers with at least 1 XBH after age 40. There were 67. I saved that list and and determined which of those 67 had at least 1 XBH prior to age 40. There were 61. By putting both lists on an Excel spreadsheet I found the 6 pitchers who had an XBH for age 40+ only.

Reply to Richard Chester

I followed a similar but a bit simpler route. Found pitchers with XBH games after age 40 and saved that result. Then did a search of that result for seasons with XBH >= 1, and sorted that result by the age column. All the Age 41+ were good, but had to check the age 40 first seasons (XBH may have preceded 40th birthday) and the age 39 first seasons (XBH may have followed 40th birthday). But, doing it again, i realize I missed one: Frank Tanana recorded his first XBH in his age 39 season, on July 4, 1993, one… Read more »