passing

Barring a miraculous 7 plunks in the last weeks of this season, Craig Biggio will finish the 2006 season without passing anyone on the all time HBP list. This will be the first season he hasn't passed anyone on the plunk list since 1988. Obviously, there is only 1 person left to pass since Biggio is #2 on the all time list, and as Biggio has moved higher up the ladder, the passings have became less frequent. But, the number of days between Biggio passing Tommy Tucker, and whenever he passes Hughie Jennings will be the longest time he's spent on any rung of the HBP ladder since his first plunk. Biggio spent 480 days at #6 on the all time list after passing Frank Robinson on April 13, 2002 on plunk #199, until he passed Dan McGann on plunk #231 on August 6, 2003. It was a year ago yesterday that Biggio passed Tucker for #2 on the list, and by April 1st of next season, it will have been 566 days and counting.

Biggio hasn't passed an active player on the HBP list since August 30, 1997 when he recorded plunk 109 tying him with Sherry MaGee and Andres Galarraga and August 31st when he moved into sole possession of 33rd place on the all time list with plunk 110. Galarraga got his 110th plunk on September 10th that year, but by that time Biggio had 113. Biggio has been #1 on the active list ever since. Galarraga would eventually climb to 10th on the list with 178 career HBPs when he retired after the 2004 season, but Jason Kendall has since knocked him down to 11th. Kendall passed Galarraga on May 6, 2005.

Here is Biggio's rank on the all time plunk list as of the end of each season since 1988:
1988 - 5,635th (tied)
1989 - 2,276th (tied)
1990 - 1,850th (tied)
1991 - 1,624th (tied)
1992 - 1,092nd (tied)
1993 - 675th (tied)
1994 - 447th (tied)
1995 - 170th (tied)
1996 - 68th (tied)
1997 - 26th
1998 - 14th (tied)
1999 - 11th (tied)
2000 - 10th
2001 - 7th
2002 - 6th
2003 - 5th
2004 - 4th
2005 - 2nd
2006 - 2nd?


Here are the last 40 players Biggio has passed on his way up the plunk list, with the rank they held before Biggio came along, and the dates Biggio tied and passed them - with links to the retrosheet.org boxscores:

Player	HBPs	Rank	Tied	Passed
Tommy Tucker	272	2	09/03/2005	09/12/2005
Don Baylor	267	3	06/28/2005	06/29/2005
Ron Hunt	243	4	04/24/2004	04/25/2004
Dan McGann	230	5	07/12/2003	08/06/2003
Frank Robinson	198	6	04/10/2002	04/13/2002
Minnie Minoso	192	7	07/28/2001	08/18/2001
Jake Beckley	183	8	06/29/2001	06/30/2001
Curt Welch	173	9	04/20/2001	04/29/2001
Kid Elberfeld	165	10	06/09/2000	06/13/2000
Fred Clarke	153	11	09/13/1999	04/29/2000
Chet Lemon	151	12	07/25/1999	09/09/1999
Carlton Fisk	143	13	04/25/1999	05/04/1999
Nellie Fox	142	14	08/24/1998	04/25/1999
Art Fletcher	141	15	08/20/1998	08/24/1998
Bill Dahlen	140	16	08/11/1998	08/20/1998
Frank Chance	137	17	07/21/1998	07/27/1998
John McGraw	134	18	07/04/1998	07/11/1998
Dummy Hoy	134	18	07/04/1998	07/11/1998
Nap Lajoie	134	18	07/04/1998	07/11/1998
Steve Brodie	132	21	06/22/1998	07/04/1998
Brian Downing	129	22	06/17/1998	06/20/1998
Willie Keeler	129	22	06/17/1998	06/20/1998
Honus Wagner	125	24	05/20/1998	05/23/1998
Buck Herzog	120	25	04/01/1998	04/28/1998
Jimmie Dykes	115	26	09/12/1997	09/17/1997
Sherm Lollar	115	26	09/12/1997	09/17/1997
Bill Freehan	114	28	09/12/1997	09/12/1997
Frankie Crosetti	114	28	09/12/1997	09/12/1997
Steve Evans	111	30	09/01/1997	09/07/1997
Andre Dawson	111	30	09/01/1997	09/07/1997
George Burns	110	32	08/31/1997	09/01/1997
Sherry Magee	109	33	08/30/1997	08/31/1997
Andres Galarraga	109*	33	08/30/1997	08/31/1997
Bill Joyce	108	35	08/27/1997	08/30/1997
Pete Rose	107	36	08/24/1997	08/27/1997
Wally Schang	107	36	08/24/1997	08/27/1997
Dan Brouthers	105	37	08/17/1997	08/23/1997
Tris Speaker	103	38	08/12/1997	08/17/1997
Orlando Cepeda	102	40	08/12/1997	08/12/1997
Henry Larkin	100	41	07/25/1997	08/09/1997

*Andres Galarraga, as noted above, had 178 career plunks, but he was at 109 when Biggio passed him.

27 of the above named players did not live long enough to see Craig Biggio pass them on the all time HBP list.

Mets notes

The New York Mets have been hit by pitches 1,637 times in franchise history, but their franchise leader in plunks, Ron Hunt, was only hit 41 times for the Mets. Hunt played his first 4 seasons for the Mets, but moved on to the Dodgers, Giants and Expos before he reached dizzying heights in the field of getting plunked, acheiving a 50 plunk season in 1971 for the Expos. There are only two other Mets who have more career plunks for the Mets than Craig Biggio had in his 1997 - Cleon Jones with 39 and Felix Milan with 36. Craig Biggio has been hit by a pitch more times than the top 9 players in Mets history, and the most plunks by a player who spent his entire career with the Mets is just 14 by Ed Kranepool.
Kranepool also has the Mets franchise mark for hits and doubles, with 1,418 hits (less than half of Biggio's total), and 225 doubles - 405 less than Craig Biggio. Biggio even has more home runs than the Mets franchise leader. But, it's not as though the Mets never had any good players. The Mets have had 4 players with over 100 HBPs, 3 players with over 3000 hits, 5 players with 500 doubles (soon to be 6), and 5 members of the 400 home run club play for them for parts of their careers.
The Mets also have, according to this site, 332 walk-off wins in franchise history. That's any home game won in the 9th inning or later - thus walking off and not finishing the final half-inning. Craig Biggio has hit 14 game ending, walk-off RBI's in his career, most recently on April 2, 2003 when he finished off a 5 run 9th inning comeback with a 2 RBI single against the Colorado Rockies. He was also plunked by Aaron Cook in that game, but that is his only game where he hit a walk-off RBI and also got hit by a pitch. He has never won a game on a walk-off bases-loaded plunk. Biggio hit his 3rd career walk-off homer run (and his most recent) on July 31, 2001 against the Mets, winning the game on a 10th inning solo shot off Jerrod Riggan.

Mets pitchers have hit 39 batters this season, bringing their all time franchise total to 1,609. Al Leiter holds the franchise record with 63 plunks thrown, but the Mets have employed 9 different pitchers with 100 or more career plunks for portions of their careers.
12 different pitchers have plunked Biggio 18 times for the Mets (the most of any NL east team), but 43 pitchers who pitched for the Mets sometimes during their career have plunked Biggio a total of 63 times. No other team has had as many members of the pitchers who have hit Biggio with a pitch pass through their clubhouse.

All-Plunk team (infield)

Yesterday I began announcing the Official Plunk Biggio All Time All-Plunk team, beginning with the outfield. Today we'll go through the greatest plunk taking infielders of all time.

Starter:
First Base: Tommie Tucker
Second Base: Craig Biggio
Short Stop: Hughie Jennings
Third Base: John McGraw

Backups:
2B: Ron Hunt
3B: Eddie Yost

The starting 4 have been hit 964 times so far, with 342 on the bench.

1B: Tommie Tucker played a little outfield and pitched a couple of games, but what he did most of the time was play first base and get hit by pitches. 272 plunks stands as 2nd all time for the moment. Tucker led the American Association in plunks in 1887 and 1889 and was the National League HBP leader from 1890-1892.

2B: Craig Biggio gets the edge over Ron Hunt at second base largely because this is a website about Craig Biggio. To date, Biggio and Hunt both have been hit 214 times while playing second base. Hunt had 243 HBPs, the 50 plunk season, and led the National League a record seven consecutive years. But, Biggio has 271 and counting, and 5 league plunk titles. And a web log.

SS: Hughie Jennings. The all time leader often left out of the conversation by not being modern enough. 287 career plunks, with 220 recorded in years when he played at least 75% of his games at short stop. He led the league 5 times, and was plunked 51 times in 1896.

3B: John McGraw was hit 134 times in his career with 99 recorded in years in which he spent 75% of his time at third. He tied Dummy Hoy for the first HBP crown in the American League in 1901. Anyone associated with a guy named Dummy gets extra credit. Eddie Yost makes the team for getting plunked 99 times in 16 seasons at third. Also, since these two were barely plunked at all compared to Jennings, Tucker, Biggio and Hunt, it seemed like a platoon was called for.

Political Plunkings

Craig Biggio has been hit by a pitch 232 times while the Republican Party has controlled the House of Representatives, and only 36 times while the Democrats have held a majority in Congress. He has been hit 122 times on days when Congress was in session, 110 of those were under Republican control. Dennis Hastert has been Speaker of the house during 57 of those plunks while Congress was in session, the most of any Speaker, but Newt Gingrich was close behind with 53. In total, Biggio has been plunked 126 times during Hastert's term as Speaker, 106 under Gingrich, 34 under Thomas Foley, and twice during James Wright's term.
Biggio has been plunked 195 times while the Republican's had a majority in the Senate, and 73 times when Democrats held the majority. He was hit 151 times during the Clinton administration, 99 times so far during George W.'s term, and 18 times under the original President Bush. Biggio's 151 plunks during the Clinton presidency trails only Ron Hunt's 165 during the Nixon era for most HBPs during a presidency. Don Baylor had 149 under Reagan, but Hughie Jennings and Tommy Tucker had there careers split up by Presidents McKinley, Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.

Inspirational

It's a sports cliche that some managers can get their players to run through walls for them, but not many can get a player to take over a hundred plunks. Larry Dierker got 112 plunks out of Craig Biggio, and only 6 managers had a player get more HBPs for them (not including Fred Clarke who was hit 125 times as a player/manager).
Most plunks by player/manager combinations:

Manager	Player	Span	Plunks
Ned Hanlon	Hughie Jennings	1893-1903	245
Frank Selee	Tommy Tucker	1890-1897	150
John McGraw	Art Fletcher	1909-1920	132
Fred Clarke	Honus Wagner	1897-1915	116
Joe McCarthy	Frankie Crosetti	1932-1946	114
Gene Mauch	Ron Hunt	1971-1974	114
Larry Dierker	Craig Biggio	1997-2001	112
Connie Mack	Jimmie Dykes	1918-1932	93
Joe Torre	...*	1996-2004	92

*Some overrated Yankee who gets too much press as it is, and I'm not printing his name.

Not only did Larry Dierker manage Biggio for more of his plunks than any other Astros manager, he inspired Biggio to a higher ratio of HBPs per plate appearance than any other - that could have something to do with Dierker's Astros 3 first place finishes. However, current manager Phil Garner has gotten more home run power from Biggio than any previous manager.

Years	Manager	Plate Appearances	HBP	HR	HBP/PA	HR/PA
1988	Hal Lanier	131	0	3	0	0.0229
'89-'93	Art Howe	3166	28	48	0.00884	0.01516
'94-'96	Terry Collins	1907	57	43	0.02989	0.02255
'97-'01	Larry Dierker	3414	112	86	0.03281	0.02519
'02-'04	Jimy Williams	1761	55	43	0.03123	0.02442
'04-?	Phil Garner	602	15	20	0.02492	0.03322

victor z is theirs

Victor Zambrano takes the hill for the Mets today. He has never hit Craig Biggio with a pitch, but has hit 6 batters this year. That puts him in a 13 way tie for 4th in the majors, 1 plunk behind the three leaders. In 2003, Zambrano hit 20 batters as part of the Devil Rays team which set the modern record for hit batters in a season. That was the first team since 1899 to hit 95 batters.

Biggio has been hit twice on June 8th, first in 1993 by Jose Deleon, and more recently in 2000 by Alan Mills.

Reader Rastronomicals emailed Plunk Biggio to point out that Craig Biggio's HBPs contribute more of his on base percentage than any other player with more than 10,000 plate appearances. Through 2004, Biggio's HBPs contributed 6.47% of his OBP, and his ratio of times reaching base to HBPs was 15.45. This means that for every 15.45 times he reaches base, 1 of those is going to be via the plunk. Taking a look at the other end of this stat, Harold Baines only got hit by a pitch once out of every 281.57 times he reached base. And, just to prove that it's not always about extremes, Fred McGriff got hit once per 98.31 times reaching base, making him the player closest to the category average. Ted Williams, the all time leader in On Base Percentage, got hit by a pitch only once every 120.87 times he reached base, but he took time off to defend the country in 2 wars so he only had 9789 plate appearances.

Rastronomicals' email also asked how Biggio ranked if the plate appearance cut off were dropped to 5000, so here it is. Hughie Jennings is the all time leader with 1 plunk in every 7.53 times reaching base. Sandy Alomar Jr has reach base 491 times for every HBP.
Top ten OBP to HBP% ratios among players with 5000 plate appearances

Hughie Jennings	7.53
Ron Hunt	9.16
Jason Kendall	11.53
Don Baylor	12.01
Damion Easley	15.09
Craig Biggio	15.45
Minnie Minoso	15.46
Andres Galarraga	17.38
Brady Anderson	18.02
Chet Lemon	18.38

And the bottom ten:

Sandy Alomar Sr.	491
Jerry Mumphrey	481
Jose Cruz	450.86
Vern Stephens	426.17
Garret Anderson	410.2
Otis Nixon	393.8
Ruben Sierra	387.43
Jim Hegan	386.75
Mickey Mantle	320.08
Granny Hamner	314.33