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Time, the Cubs and My Last Ho-Hum Baseball Stat Posting

I have often found it useful to gain a temporal perspective for events long in the past by mirror-imaging time. Bill Tilley reported the first Soviet nuc detection in July 1962 as target 27103. That was 54 years ago. If you mirror image that period – go back in time 54 years before 1962 - you have a date of 1908 when only the Brits had significant numbers of military submarines including the D Class designed for foreign service with an endurance of 2500 nmi at 10 knots on the surface.

As all should know by now, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years (1908). If you go back 108 years from 1908, you find that George Washington had died the year before and a bat-and-ball game called “base ball” was being played in the center squares of New England towns; 108 years is thus exposed as a really long time ago.

Matching my earlier post on pitching, the following - my last baseball posting - describes the most remarkable batting performance ever, 147 years ago.

In 1868, the management of the Cincinnati Baseball Club hired Harry Wright to recruit the best available talent nation-wide. By 1969, Harry had assembled the first openly professional team, the star of which was Harry's 22-year old brother George who was paid $1400 for the entire season or $25 a game.

In 1969, the Red Stockings won all 57 games they played, 19 of which were against other now professional clubs but most were against local “picked-nines” The average score of those 57 games was 42-13 with the Reds scoring over a 100 runs in several.

In those 57 games, George collected 304 hits for a batting average of .633 including 49 home-runs (few parks had fences) and scored 339 runs. Sure, some of the opposition was weak but no one else came anywhere close to George that year or in any year since.

George also was a pioneer at his position, becoming the first shortstop to play deep in front of the outfield grass to improve his range. He also pioneered the shortstop’s strategy of sharing the middle base with the second baseman on double plays, depending upon which side of the infield a ball is hit.

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