odd stats
For those of you who haven't thought about things like prime, even, and odd numbers since 7th grade and were hoping to keep it that way, skip down to the second section below (beginning "In other notes").
Craig Biggio has been hit by a pitch 271 times. 271 is a prime number, and there are 57 other primes less than 271. On average, it has taken Craig Biggio 9.22 games to record the next hit-by-pitch after a prime number plunk, while the plunks following non-prime numbers have come after only 9.14 games. This could easily lead one to believe that having been hit by a pitch a prime number of times has absolutely nothing to do with when you'll get hit by a pitch, and I would be inclined to agree.
On the other hand, the next plunk has come 7.71 games after an odd numbered plunk, but when Biggio has an even numbered total, it takes an average of 10.58 games to find another pitcher to hit him.
In other notes related to tonight's opposing pitcher, the last pitcher to get the win in the final game of a World Series and hit Craig Biggio with a pitch in his career was Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser who won the clinching game 5 of the 1988 World Series, and plunked Biggio on April 1, 1998, and two more times on May 7, 2000. The only other pitcher to accomplish both feats is Jose Rijo, winner of game 4 of the 1990 World Series, and plunker of Craig Biggio on August 2, 1992. Derek Lowe could become the first pitcher to get the win in the final game of the World Series and plunk Biggio in the following season.
Their are 5 pitchers who have been charged with a loss in the final game of the World Series and also hit Craig Biggio: Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Calvin Schiraldi. Not at all surprisingly, all five of them lost to over paid teams from New York, but that's a topic for a whole other web site.
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Now if you ask me, and plenty of folks do now and again, the whole “think outside the box” thing is getting pretty worn out and useless. In fact, that is so last century that it makes my toes curl every time I hear somebody say it. Can’t some yahoo come up with a new catch phrase that is equally as trite and meaningless?! The 90s are over folks, it’s time to get back inside the box and get back to work.
With that in mind, I commenced to getting in to my box and doing a little cogitating of my own here recently and it dawned on me that my system of prognosticating plunkings of our man Craig “Target” Biggio by way of generating anagrams from the names of them on the pitching staff of the opposing team has not, to date, been very fruitful. I will be the first to admit that my predictions have been off the mark pert near a hundred percent of the time. Each time I make a prediction that “Target” is going to get bruised again by some enemy pitcher with a name that generates an anagram like “Spider Monkey Breakfast” or “Useful Bus Companion” I end up all comfustigated and deshriviled.
So, a couple weeks ago I commenced to considering a number of alternate systems I might could use. The twins suggested prognostication through interpretive dance (they like to turn on the hi fi and squirm around the den floor and act out stories through their dance moves) and Mama suggested I go consult Madam Elmira because she is only three trailers down and she is the best tarot card reader in the trailer park, and Junior said I ought to just do a little cipherin’ and see what the numbers say. Well, I didn’t like any of them ideas so I went out in the shed and dismantled my patented anagram generator while I commenced to do a little noggin’ scratchin’ about what should come next. I got me a piece of hay to chew on and started playing around with a new type of prognostication based on the Fuzzy Logic theory. Basically what I come up with is this:
NOT x = (1 - truth(x))
x AND y = minimum(truth(x), truth(y))
x OR y = maximum(truth(x), truth(y))
Being as Fuzzy Logic is basically just an extreme extension of Boolean Logic it is pretty obvious that what we got her is a system of dealing with partial truths rather than the traditional need for true or false equations. That is how I eventually came up with the idea of a prognosticating chicken plop grid.
The chicken plop grid certainly ain’t a new idea, but combining the random selection properties of the chicken plop grid, henceforth “CPG,” with the parameters of Fuzzy Logic ought to more clearly suggest when “Target” will tie Tommy “Double T” Tucker. In short, here is how it works:
You take a normal 4 x 8 sheet of medium quality plywood and get yourself a ruler. Then, mark off a grid with a big black felt tipped pen. Within each cell on the grid you got to write a number (you have the option of numbering the cells chronologically or randomly). Then rig up some chicken wire so as to turn the sheet of plywood in to the floor of a little chicken-sized prison cell. Then you get yourself a chicken, hens are proven to be best for this activity, and place her down on the plywood. Then the waiting commences.
I set up my CPG out in the shed. I got me one of the hens and sat her down in there and turned on the radio and got me a pot of coffee going and waited for her to go through the natural process of eliminating the waste products generated by her eating the worms, grubs, caterpillars, and ants what she finds on the ground in that crawl space under the Huckabee double wide trailer. When the hen lets loose with a little chicken plop, then the deed is done. Whatever number the plop lands on is the selection the chicken has randomly made. This number then can be coupled with my Fuzzy Logic model as presented above and Bob’s your uncle.
At this point I suppose you are eager for me to wheel around and get to the point, and frankly I am too. The CPG determined that “Target” will tie “Double T” during the third game of the Cincinnati series on the 1st of September. If you want to duplicate my experiment to check my results, just make sure you use a hen – not a rooster. Roosters tend to regularly struggle with constipation and it might force you to stay out in your shed all afternoon.
That chicken failed me. That chicken failed all of us. That chicken is already out under the car port being plucked by Junior. Tonight we feed on failed chicken. I will get back to you on my new system for prognosticating plunks.
I thought this chicken idea was just crazy enough to work until I realized why it sounded so familiar. It's the exact same system they use for college football's BCS rankings.
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