By Richard Rosen
I’m here to talk this week about what has recently occurred to me is a
statistical oddity in major league baseball, and that’s the strike out. Now I
hear you all out there saying: The strike out? What’s odd about that? Three
strikes and you’re out, the rule’s been in place since Creation (actually 1889),
what could be simpler than that? As you know there are three different kinds of
strikes in baseball:
1) the called strike: a pitch that passes through the strike zone unscathed
by the hitter, then judged to have done so, usually incorrectly according to the
hitter, by the umpire;.
2) the swinging strike: a pitch, whether in or out of the strike zone, at
which the hitter swings and misses.
(Where the called strike depends on the umpire to make the
proper determination, the swinging strike is based entirely on the hitter’s performance—or
non-performance as the case may be—and relieves the umpire of anything but the
most perfunctory, almost redundant call.)
3) the foul strike, a pitch swung on and hit or tipped into foul territory.
But think for the nonce about the strike out. It is, after all, an out, but
apparently a very special kind of out. Why? Ask yourself: What other kinds of
outs typically show up on the pitcher’s stats sheet? Take for example a routine
grounder to short or a lazy pop fly to center. The players involved with those
batted balls invariably transform them into an out, the shortstop with a slick
pick-up-and-in-one-fluid-motion throws to first (for which he’s awarded an
assist, not an out; the first baseman gets all the kudos for that), the center
fielder with a snappy one-handed catch (doing that in Little League got you
benched immediately; we were under strict orders to always catch with two hands,
but that’s another story). What then, I ask you, fair reader, is the ultimate
difference between the strike out and the ground or fly out? They’re both outs,
nicht wahr? And yet the first gets its own column on the pitcher’s stats sheet
(abbreviated SO), and the latter two—both just as out as a strike out—get, as my
grandmother used to say, bubkis. Why isn’t there a GO (ground outs) or FO (fly
outs) column on the pitcher’s sheet? Or even more egregiously, a strike out is
only ONE out, but a double play is TWO, which is by all standards TWICE as good
as an SO. Where’s the DPI (double plays induced) column I ask you? Who led the
league last year in this important category, huh, and who holds the career
record for DPIs? Exactly, no one knows, but we all know about Nolan Ryan and
Sandy Koufax and Roger - uh, never mind him. People, pitchers have just
two responsibilities: get 27 outs while at the same time allowing
the fewest runs possible, preferably zero. Runs allowed are listed on the stats
sheet, so why not the other side of the equation: Outs?
Thus the question arises: Why is there such a fascination with what is, in
essence, an out? One suggestion is that most strike out pitchers, except for
that knuckleballer Dickey with the Mets, are flame throwers, and Americans like
speed. Tell me, and be honest: is there anything more spine-tingling than 97 mph
fastball? Why else does the typical baseball broadcast nowadays include a speed
gun reading (frequently engulfed in cartoony flames) in the little box on the
screen that marks the inning and score? Speed gun readings are also routinely
posted on the stadium score board in oversized numbers. But I think there’s a
flip, darker side to the strike out: the hitter often appears foolish or
incompetent, swinging futilely and ridiculously late as the baseball roars
unhittably past. This provides the typical beer-sotted fan with a brief though
glorious moment of superiority (but only if the hitter belongs to the visiting
team), during which time he can look down his nose at the struck out
Gomer skulking back to the dugout, bat held in one hand like a baguette, which
it might as well have been for all the chance he had of even fouling off a Nolan
Ryan Express. Of course the average fan conveniently overlooks the fact that,
put in the same situation as the hitter, standing in against Justin Verlander
or, God forbid, Aroldis Chapman, the result would be the same (that is, if he
didn’t duck for cover after the first pitch). So there you have a few thoughts on
the strike out; be sure to send your cards and letters to BD and let us know
what you think too.
Note: Be sure to check in next time when I report on the progress of my
campaign to clean up baseball terminology. You might remember I decided to give
up the attempt to push for correction of the somewhat misleading phrase "home
run," to change it to the more accurate "home trot". I’ve run into stiff
opposition on this one from baseball traditionalists, especially those who spent
any time playing in the old Mexican League, but I’m pleased to note they at
least acknowledge there’s a problem with "four bagger"; still they are balking,
so to speak, at the more precise "three bagger and one irregular plastic
pentagon" or the more concise "quadruple". I’ve also received a number of
encouraging signs from the California legislature regarding my proposed bill that would
require team managements to muzzle broadcasters who repeatedly refer to a homer
as a "big fly". This is especially strong among Southland
representatives, who tell me that the Angel broadcasters, the worst offenders of
my proposed law, have taken to calling a single a "little fly," a double a
"middle sized fly," and (surely as a joke) a triple a "big fly minus one." I’ll
also report on my colleague Merv Throneberry’s progress in getting a baseball
diamond called what it actually is, a square.
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