If A 3rd GIDP Happens In The 25th, And No One Is There To See It, Does It Make A Record?
Posted by Steve Lombardi on August 11, 2007
Is it possible to have a good day and a bad day, all in the same day? Sure, in life it happens all the time. How about baseball? Just for the fun of it, I asked Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Game Finder to show me all games, since 1957, where a batter had 3+ hits in a game - but where he also grounded into 3+ double-plays in the game. It's only been done once since 1957: Robin Yount on May 8, 1984.
Check out that game. 25 inning contest played in 8 hours and 6 minutes. Tom Seaver won it in relief - the only one of his 311 career wins that came out of the pen. 14,754 were there to see that game. I wonder how many saw Yount ground into that 3rd DP in the top of the 25th?
August 11th, 2007 at 9:16 am
He GIDPed in his first two at-bats (each time after a one-out Sundberg walk), then hit a game tying single.
In the 9th, still tied at 1-1, Yount led off with a double, stole third and scored on a the catcher's throwing error. At that moment, he was surely the hero of the game. He had a game tying hit and later scored the go-ahead run.
Then he went 1-6 with a K and a walk, and a GIDP in the final inning.
This game surely defends Ted Williams' quote: “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.”
Detroit was 24-4 by the end of that day. The Brewers were already 10.5 out, and would end up 36.5 out! Yount would wind up leading the Brewers in 20 different offensive categories, but he would not make the all-star team and he would not get any MVP votes. He would never play a game at SS again after the 1984 season.
It is difficult to understand why he only made 3 all-star games in his career. What other hall of famers hold such a dubious distinction?
How any other games have a HOFer starting and getting no decision for one team, with a HOFer not starting and getting a decision for the other team?
August 11th, 2007 at 10:17 am
That's a pretty cool find, Steve.