How Craig Biggio prevents Earthquakes.

According to data from the Southern California Earthquake Data Center, there have been 13,491 earthquakes in the Southern California area on days when Craig Biggio has been hit by a pitch. Most, obviously, have been very small, averaging about 1.48 in magnitude. The SCEDC has recorded about 48.6 earthquake events per day on days when Biggio gets hit by a pitch, but only 46.6 on days when he does not get plunked. When Biggio gets hit by pitches, he prevents 2 earthquakes a day. And since he's been hit on 263 dates, that means he's prevented 526 earthquakes, right? Now that's taking one for the team.

Also, the average magnitude of quakes recorded on days when Biggio plays but doesn't get plunked is 1.53, but it dips to 1.49 when he does gets hit once and 1.43 on days when he's been hit twice.

The most intense earthquakes to occur on days when Biggio has been hit by a pitch were both about 5.0 magnitude aftershocks of the Northridge Earthquake. The first was on June 26, 1995 when Mark Petkovsek plunked Biggio, and the other was April 26, 1997 when he was hit by Shawn Estes. But who knows how powerful those 2 he prevented on both of those days could have been.

The highest magnitude quakes recorded on days when Biggio got hit by a pitch in California were a pair of 3.68 quakes on June 6, 1997 when Biggio got hit by Joey Hamilton in San Diego. One of those had an epicenter just 21.5 miles from Jack Murphy Stadium.