10 Things I Didn’t Know About Barry Bonds
Posted by Chris J. on August 8, 2007
Earlier tonight Barry Lamar Bonds became the all-time baseball home run king. I could wait until tommorrow when the game goes in the b-ref info before doing a write up, but if I do that, odds are Andy will beat me to it anyway. So, with apologies to Dave Studenman, here are ten things I learned about Bonds from b-ref's PI:
1) Longest stretch without a homer: 27 games. Way back in the 1980s, when he was a young'un he did it twice. In the Big Head era, it's only 14 games. Happened earlier this year in fact. No fun getting old.
2) Who has he gone deep on the most? Well, five guys are tied for that honor with 8 dings allowed each. Future HoFers Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Curt Schilling. Also there's Capt'n Crafy: Terry Mullholland. Better homer off him or be exposed to that killer pick off move. Plus there's Chan Ho Park. And really, who hasn't hit at least 8 homers off him? Nick Punto has 7 off Park.
3) Who faced him the most without allowing any homers? A man also known for taking chemical substances on the job, Rick Sutcliffe. In the case of the ESPN announcer, his are most certainly not performance enhancing drugs. The link is organized least to most homers, and then most to least PA within that bunch. Scroll down and you'll see El Presidente allowed only 1 homer in 100 PA.
4) He had trouble against Sid Fernandez for some reason. Check the link in #3. He hit 1 homer off Fernandez in 80 PA (just below Dennis Martinez). Fernandez was a flyball pitcher. An extreme flyball pitcher. Hell, Davey Johnson used to start Howard Johnson at short when he pitched because there was so little need for infield D on those days. As the all-time home run king, you'd think Bonds would be likely to hit flyballs. Put it together, it should be a helluva lot more than 1 homer in 80 PA. Bizarre.
5) He's hit 10 walk-off homers. Three were in 2003 alone. Surprisingly, only one came off of Jose Lima. Then again, when you pitch like Lima does, you're not going to be in there very off in the ninth inning holding a narrow lead.
6) He's hit more away homers than home ones. Folks, that's not supposed to happen. From memory, 52% of homers are hit at home. For Barry it's 380 on the road, and now 376 at home.
7) He's had four 3-homer games. All but one have come this millenium. Two were in Coors.
8) He's hit 3 inside-the-park homers. Two to left, and one to right. Two were in 1997. Uh, OK. Eons ago I heard that Hank Aaron had one. So he's still the all-time king of hitting them out. For now.
9) Longest streak of hitting at least one homer a day: 7. Actually, I think I remember that, but I'll add it in anyway.
10) Hate to break up the theme of homers, but I gotta check his other record. He once was walked in19 consecutive games. He once was intentionally walked 6 straight games. I would've guessed that streak would be higher, but it only takes one blow out and it's not worth giving him a free pass.
Oh, and an 11th thing - just between you and me (looks around in all directions) - (whispering) - he's the all-time home run king.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:39 am
[...] Interesting statistics on Barry Bonds over at Baseball Stat of the Day (which is quickly becoming a favorite site): 1) Longest stretch without a homer: 27 games. Way back in the 1980s, when he was a young’un he did it twice. In the Big Head era, it’s only 14 games. Happened earlier this year in fact. No fun getting old. [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Chris--I'm glad you wrote it because I don't have too much to say on the topic.
I will say this, though: of all of his walkoff homers, the one he hit against Lee Smith was by far the most memorable. That was the one where he thrust both of his arms straight into the air immediately after hitting the ball. (And that was back when Lee Smith was a serious hombre.)
August 8th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Also, I like the "Big Head Era". That's a nice PC term we should all adopt. It's probably also worth pointing out that there's no evidence that Rick Sutcliffe is a continuing user of alcohol or any other drug.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Bonds has 610 1-HR games, 67 2-HR games, and 4 3-HR games in his career so far. 610 1-HR games is absolutely MLB record. No doubt. However, do you know whether his 67 2-HR games is also MLB record? I can't figure it out in B-R because some players have no HR log, such as Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx and Mel Ott. Not sure what's the distribution of their HRs. In addition, for 3-HR games, Sammy Sosa has 6 3-HR games in his career. Is this also a MLB record?
August 9th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Mike Bacsik Sr. against players who have 755 home runs:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/pvb.cgi?n2=aaronha01&n1=bacsimi01
Mike Bacsik Jr. against player who have 755 home runs:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/pvb.cgi?n2=bondsba01&n1=bacsimi02
Aaron had already hit #755 when he faced Bacsik Sr. in August of 1976. He would only collect 4 more hits before retiring.
Pretty cool distinction for a father/son duo.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:49 am
[...] Chris’ excellent post about Bonds yesterday, he pointed out that Bonds’ longest homer-less streaks were 27 games in the [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Speaking of in-the-park homers, I was really hoping Bonds would hit one off the boardwalk that would take some weird bounce (like Ichiro's hit in the All-Star Game) and see him chug around the bases and bowl over the catcher for the home run record. But oh well, maybe A-Rod will do that someday.