Braves’ factoids for those who like such things

(This is a corrected post. It’s been noted that part of my post was missing last night omitting players and generally making a mess of the last item. As a result I’ve fired Billy Wagner’s livestock and now rely on the purely Texas livestock on Chipper’s ranch for verification. The data from Baseball-Reference.com helped too of course. )

As I prepare for more West Texas snow, sleet and rain a few odd bits that mean almost nothing unless you just like trivia. Nevertheless onward, ever onward . . .

A new svelte Brian McCann will report to spring training next week. The AP report that he’s down from a listed 230 last year to 222 and that you can tell. According to BMac, “I just cleaned up my diet.” Now if he can close that gap in his 5 hole when he slides t0 his right we’ll be in great shape.

Ferris Buehler used part of his famous day odd to watch the Braves play at Wrigley. Diligent research into this on-going mystery by Baseball Prospectus’ Larry Granillo writes in that the game in question actually happened on June 5, 1985 when the Cubbies hosted the Braves. According to Garnillo,” The foul ball that Ferris caught was hit by Atlanta rightfielder Claudell Washington (#15) in the top of the 11th inning.” I’m glad that’s cleared up, now if someone would explain why we wore those powder blue pajamas uniforms in the first place I could rest easy.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia says he’s been told he’s the Boston starting catcher. After many ups and downs physically and mentally the former Brave says he’s overcome both the injuries and the throwing issues that plagued him in Texas. I – along with most Braves fans I suspect – hope Salty does well there…unless he’s playing us of course. 🙂

30 is easier than 40 Since 1901 there have been 565, 30/30 seasons, a season when a player has 30 or more doubles and hit 30 home runs. Not surprisingly the majority (492) occurred in the post war era. The real demarcation seems however to be the expansion era (post 1961) as it has happened 455 times in those 50 years. In that time it was done Four 19 times by Braves; Henry Aaron and Chipper twice did it four times, Andruw Jones 3 times, Dale Murphy and Ron Gant twice while Felipe Alou, Orlando Cepeda, Gary Sheffield and Adam LaRoche did it once. New Braves hitting coach Larry Parrish did it in once in 1979.

On the other hand a 40/40 season is more difficult occurring only 34 times since 1901 (by 24 different players).
There were none from 1940 and 1972 or 1974 to 1994 (Willie Stargell 73.) Since then we’ve seen it done 22 times by 18 players with Chipper the only Brave on the list with 45 homers and 41 doubles in that marvelous 1999 season.

Here’s a list of all 30/30 season by Braves of any city.

YearPlayer

Age

1934

1935

1953

1958

1959