From: ak@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Andreas Kutschera)
Subject: Re: 6 hits in inning without scoring
Organization: Techn. University of Berlin, Germany
Distribution: rec
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 10:25:34 GMT

bew@druwa.ATT.COM (WeissBE) writes:


>dgh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Doug Huffer) writes
>>Can a team get six hits in an inning and not score a run?? (Remember, based
>>on 1951 rules, so scoring may have changed since then, I'm not sure.)   
>
>Following is a puzzle that Hal Lebovitz, formerly of the Cleveland
>Plain Dealer, periodically posed, but never answered in the newspaper:
>
>How can a team get 3 triples, 1 double, 2 singles, and 2 stolen
>bases in their half of an inning without scoring?  He claimed it
>actually occurred in a minor league game.  I will send the
>solution later.
>
>Barry Weiss
>AT&T Bell Laboratories

okay, here's my way of scoring this:
It is the 1993 annual All-Star game, the AL half of the first:

Kirby Puckett hits a ball deep into right field, easily reaches third, but
since Tony LaRussa, the third base coach is battling a bee, Kirby thinks he is
being waved home, rounds third and just as easily gets thrown out at the plate.

Rickey Henderson is up next and thinking 'I'm not going to be fooled by this
manager' and smacks a 2-1 pitch by Mets pitcher Gary Maddux ($35M for 3.5 yrs)
to the left field wall. He keeps looking at the ball and, just as previously
mentioned in another post, overslides third. Out number 2.

Wade Boggs, who again got a surprisingly high number of votes inspite his poor
performance, reaches second even though CF Otis Nixon misses the ball because he
is distracted by a fan insulting him for blowing the 1992 pennant when he struckout in the ninth of the 1-game playoff with the Reds. It is ruled no error,
because Nixon did catch the thrown bottle.

Next up, Cal Ripken jr. Boggs thinks that Ripken is tired from already playing
85 games this season including 6 double headers last week (they had to make up
for games lost since the roofs of both the Metronome and the Kingdome fell in
in the offseason - no truth to the rumors that the "Baseball on Grass" movement
is behind this). So Boggs pays no attention to the batter. When Ripken hits a
single to third, Boggs is taken completely by surprise and has to stay at
second.

AL manager Butch Hobson (who became the AL manager when all other managers
mysteriously disappeared the week before the All-Star game and Tony LaRussa
refused to take the job) does something very daring: he gives a *double* steal
sign. This takes Gary Maddux completely by surprise, he throws a wild pitch
into the CBS broadcast booth knocking out Tim McCarver.
Runners at second and third. (and since they were on their way when Maddux
threw wild, it is scored as a double steal)

National League manager Jim Leland replaces Maddux with Marlins pitcher Joe
Hesketh who is having a sensational year, but Butch Hobson counters with pinch
hitting Rick Sutcliffe for Frank Thomas. Hobson later said in an interview that
'Hesketh has never faced Sutcliffe. I wanted that extra element of surprise.'
Surprise he gets, Sutcliffe gets a bunt single which is perfectly well
executed. Bases loaded.

On comes Dave Winfield who became the first All Star starter to be voted in
with five million votes (1993 was also the first year that the league accepted
photocopies of the All Star Ballots). Winfield hits a 3-2 pitch to deep center.
All runners score, Winfield reaches third standing up. During the ovations
hardly anybody notices that NL regular All Star second baseman Ryne Sandberg
takes the ball to the bag appealing that Sutcliffe missed second on his way
home. Second base umpire Terry Cooney (AL) calls Sutcliffe out.
Since this was a force play, the inning is over and no runs score.

Also, in the following weeks, after a long discussion among r.s.bb
sabermetricians, a new stat category is introduced: ERBI, earned RBI, which is
basically the number of RBI a player got plus the number of RBI he didn't get
due to stupid performance by his teammates.
--
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