TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Monday, September 20, 2004

More Untrivial Bonds Trivia

Boy, baseball sure knows how to ignore some of the bigger milestones. Even as we're gawking at Bonds' walk total for the year and Ichiro's pursuit of George Sisler, as I write this Bonds is sitting on 2061 runs scored in his career. One more and he's tied for sixth, all-time, with none other than Willie Mays. He seems a mortal lock to pass Ruth and Aaron, tied at 2174, and if he has two more years comparable to this one or three decent years, he's going to be passing Ty Cobb and closing in on Rickey Henderson (assuming Rickey doesn't come back once again) at 2295. Yes, yes, I've written about this already this year, but here we are at passing Mays, and nobody's paying that much attention.

In looking up the career runs leaders, I'm reminded again of two greats from a previous era. Lou Gehrig retired with 1888 runs scored, at age 36. Of course Gehrig retired ill, and in the normal course of things back then players rarely played until 40, but if you assume three more decent seasons from Gehrig without the illness, we'd've been talking about him as the all-time runs leader (or not talking about him, apparently) right now.

Mel Ott seems to be fated to be the forgotten man of the inner circle of the Hall of Fame forever. 511 homers seems much less impressive than it actually was given modern totals. To put that number in proper perspective, when Ott retired, that was the NL career HR record. Only Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth had more career HR. He did benefit a bit from the Polo Grounds, but probably not that much given how deep center and the gaps were; he also had three years during WWII with poor competition. But the stat that impresses me is he's still 12th on the all-time Runs Scored list, with 1859. Only seven players, counting Barry, have passed Ott since his retirement. Ott died after a car wreck in 1958, and of course the Giants had just left New York; without Ott's presence at Hall of Fame induction ceremonies and old-timers' games and so forth, his memory seems to have fled from the collective consciousness. I suspect he may yet be more familiar to fans of the New York Times crossword puzzle than today's Giants' fans.

Bonds has already broken Ott's pre-Willie Mays franchise HR record this year, sitting on about 524 dingers as a Giant. But Barry still has 470 runs scored to go to break Ott's (New York) Giants' franchise record for runs scored as a Giant, and I'm not going to bet any hard cash that he won't do it. (Mays of course has the combined New York-San Francisco record...not that these distinctions are necessarily germane). But it would be nice for Ott's memory if he could keep a record or two on the books somehow.

Trivial Bonds Trivia

OK, back to the little stuff. Bonds walked in a pinch-hitting appearance Sunday, breaking a streak of two games without a walk. That's the longest he's gone all year without walking. He's had as many streaks of games with three or more walks as streaks of not walking -- three each. Wow.

Stretching for Immortality

Why is it we remember '714' so much more easily than '755'? The Babe had his record number for 39 years. Aaron's had his for 30. But 755 isn't quite ingrained as much. My theory is that 14 is twice seven, so in the way our minds order things, it simply resonates more. Here's my advice for Barry to assure he's remembered forever even if A Rod manages to pass him in about ten years: stop at 777 homers. With 7 MVPs under his belt (assuming he gets it this year), that will be all it takes.

posted by The Crank 4:02 PM