Quiz – 1982 (solved) |

Since I hit you with such a nasty quiz yesterday, here’s one I think will be easier.

Below are the 1982 season lines for 3 players. They are the only players from that season with a particular season batting accomplishment that can be described by (some of) the common batting totals shown. What is this seasonal batting feat?

Player	Year	Tm	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	SH	SF	BA	OBP	SLG
Tony Bernazard	1982	CHW	137	630	540	90	138	25	9	11	56	67	88	11	0	16	5	.256	.337	.396
Rafael Ramirez	1982	ATL	157	669	609	74	169	24	4	10	52	36	49	27	14	16	5	.278	.319	.379
Bob Boone	1982	CAL	143	539	472	42	121	17	0	7	58	39	34	0	2	23	5	.256	.310	.337

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/13/2013.

Hint: among expansion-era players (seasons since 1961), the same feat was accomplished only 3 times before 1982, and also only 3 times after 1982, all by different players.

Congratulations to Bix! He identified the players in the quiz as those with a lot of sacrifice bunts, despite having a bit of pop in their bats – a rare combination indeed in the modern game. It wasn’t always thus – more after the jump.

Here are the seasons since 1961 for players with 5+ SF, SH at least 3 x SF, and more HR than SF.

Rk	Player	Year	SF	HR	SH	Age	Tm	G	PA	R	H	2B	3B	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Omar Vizquel	2004	6	7	20	37	CLE	148	651	82	165	28	3	59	57	62	.291	.353	.388	.741
2	Roberto Alomar	1991	5	9	16	23	TOR	161	719	88	188	41	11	69	57	86	.295	.354	.436	.791
3	Jay Bell	1990	6	7	39	24	PIT	159	696	93	148	28	7	52	65	109	.254	.329	.362	.691
4	Tony Bernazard	1982	5	11	16	25	CHW	137	630	90	138	25	9	56	67	88	.256	.337	.396	.733
5	Bob Boone	1982	5	7	23	34	CAL	143	539	42	121	17	0	58	39	34	.256	.310	.337	.647
6	Rafael Ramirez	1982	5	10	16	24	ATL	157	669	74	169	24	4	52	36	49	.278	.319	.379	.698
7	Roy Smalley	1978	7	19	23	25	MIN	158	702	80	160	31	3	77	85	70	.273	.362	.433	.796
8	Jim Sundberg	1977	5	6	20	26	TEX	149	533	61	132	20	3	65	53	77	.291	.365	.389	.753
9	Manny Trillo	1975	5	7	15	24	CHC	154	613	55	135	12	2	70	45	78	.248	.306	.316	.622

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/13/2013.

Roy Smalley’s 1978 season is tied for the second most HR for a live-ball season with more SH than HR. The only season with more was Rogers Horsnby with 21 HR and 25 SH in 1928.

To generalize further, there have been just 76 seasons since 1961 with 5+ HR and 15+ SH. That compares to 417 such seasons from 1920 to 1960. Here’s the breakout by decade.

1920-29 – 277
1930-39 – 86
1940-49 – 29
1950-59 – 25
1960-69 – 9
1970-79 – 24
1980-89 – 16
1990-99 – 12
2000-09 – 13
2010-13 – 2

Evidently, old habits die hard with dead-ball tactics persisting into the early days of the live-ball era. Similarly, those same tactics failed to return immediately in the run-starved late 1960s, but did make a muted comeback (if you can call it that) in the following decade.

Overall, the trend is probably what you would want to see – giving up an out for a base should be a tactic practiced with great discretion, not something you would want Babe Ruth doing 21 times, as happened in the 1930 season. Still, one wonders whether it might be better to make greater use of the tactic in true one-run situations like tied in the 9th and extras or even, perish the thought, tied in the 8th. What say you?

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Bix

11 years ago

I doubt this could possibly have anything to with it, but there are a lot of perfect squares in those numbers.

Chris C

Something to do with the sacrifice bunts? They all had a decent number although none led the league.

Author

Doug

Reply to Chris C

Sac bunts are involved in the answer.

Insert Name Here

Bob Boone’s numbers that season (for the stats included here) are almost identical to those of his teammate Tim Foli. I’m struggling find a feat that includes Boone but not Foli!

Reply to Insert Name Here

Those 1982 Angels must be among the oldest, if not THE oldest, teams ever. 94% of their team PAs were by players in their age 30 season or older. But, Gene Mauch guided them to the AL West title, only to choke on a 2-0 ALCS series lead when the Brewers came back to sweep the Halos at home in Milwaukee.

How about having exactly 5 sac flies in the same season as having a career high in sac bunts?

Ron Gardenhire, Paul Molitor, and Johnny Ray also did that in 1982.

nightfly

Poor old Johnny Ray, sang a sad song on the radio…

Jumping off Chris C’s guess, exactly 5 SFs, at least 15 SHs, and at least 50 RBIs (don’t know exactly what the significance of that would be, though) yields 3 results for 1982 (these 3 players) and 10 results for expansion era. I don’t have a PI subscription, so I don’t know who those 10 are, but it seems I am close. That said, my computer is almost dead, so I don’t think I can do much more.

Final guess: Exactly 5 SFs, at least 15 SHs with career high for SHs, and at least 50 RBIs?

Getting closer. SH and SF are involved, but not RBI.

Leaving out the career high part of the answer (no way to search for that with P-I) yields 11 different players since 1961, 3 before 1982, these 3 players, and 5 after.

Good try.

Richard Chester

SF =5, SH = 15+, BB= 25+ and HR =5+ almost works.

At least 100 hits. At least 5 SF and HR. At least 3x as many SH as SF.

Gets the 3 above, plus 77 Campaneris, 77 Sundberg, 78 Smalley, 90 Bell, 91 Alomar, and 04 Vizquel.

Reply to Bix

The SF and SH criteria are right, but not the rest (though HR are part of the answer).

Maybe I misunderstood, but I get 11 seasons from that query – the 9 you mentioned plus Pettis ’86 and Trillo ’75.

Anyway, you’re really close.

Reply to Doug

If Bix said more than 3x instead of at least 3x he would be correct. The PI run is for more than 3x.

Reply to Richard Chester

Yes, that’s what I meant — thanks for the correction.

Here’s something that works: SF = 5+, SH greater than 3x SF, HR = 5+ and 2B = 15+.

You guys are all around it, so close enough.

Here’s what I was after:
– 5+ SF
– SH at least 3 x SF
– more HR than SF

This gives you guys with a little bit of pop in their bats, but who also had a lot of SH – a pretty rare breed. Which is a good thing, BTW – it certainly wasn’t that way in pre-expansion days, when you crazy stuff like Babe Ruth laying down 21 sac bunts.

Those 21 SH of Ruth’s were in 1930. From 1925 to 1930 the rule was that a player would be credited with a SH for any fly all that advanced a runner to any base, including 2nd or 3rd. From 1925 to 1930 Ruth had 6, 10, 14, 8, 13 and 21 SH. After 1930 he had zero SH to the end of his career. A similar pattern existed for Gehrig. 97 of his 106 career SH came during that time period.

Thanks for the clarification, Richard. Good to know.

There were inflated BA from 1925-1930 due to that rule.

Lawrence Azrin

This also figures into Bill Terry hitting .401 in 1930. If base-advancing fly outs were counted as outs that year, Terry’s BA would be a lot closer to .380 than .400, as he had 19 SH in 1930 (and 18/17/19 the three years before), but only 2 in 1931.

If the 1925-30 SH scoring rules were in affect for Ted Williams in 1941, he probably has a BA close to .420 (actual .406).

I double-checked. That rule was in effect 1926-1930.

@22/Richard Chester,

That’s kind of of odd, since the 1926 MLB BA of .281 is the _lowest_ since 1920 (as were the R/G). I’ve read that the NL may have used a different baseball in 1926.

If Hornsby hits his normal. 380+ that year, as he did almost every other year in the decade, that gets the NL average up another point or maybe two.

@23
Yes it is odd. Also from 1921 to 1925 the seasonal ML BA ranged from .284 to .292 and from 1926 to 1930 it ranged from .281 to .296, not much difference. And the SH rate per 9 innings from 1921 to 1925 ranged from 1.11 to 1.21 and from 1926 to 1930 they ranged from 1.06 to 1.30. Again not terribly much difference. Starting in 1931 there was a huge decline in BA and SH.

@24/Richard Chester, Most of the decline in BA was in the NL; in the AL it also declined, but not as much: league BA, 1931-1940: AL: .271 to .289/average of .279 NL: .264 to .289/average of .273 The contrast between the two leagues in runs/game was much more pronounced: the AL actually averaged more runs in the 30s than the 20s, but the NL declined substantially, usually between .6 to .8 R/G compared to the AL. In 1933 the AL scored an average of 1.03 R/G more (5.00/3.97). The same is true for the league leaders, particularly the Triple Crown… Read more »

@25

And the NL had the advantage of Baker Bowl. In the 8 1/2 seasons of games there from 1931 to 1940 the overall BA was a few points above .300.