Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
June 27, 2003, Washington Post

Some Ball-Park Figures

Baseball is a game of numbers. This season the news has been filled with reports of Rafael Palmeiro hitting his 500th career home run and Roger Clemens winning his 300th game and striking out his 4,000th batter. In baseball, you are a star if you hit .300 or win 20 games. But you are just so-so (not Sosa) if you hit .250 or have an earned run average of 4.50.

Here are some famous numbers that every baseball fan should know.

.406 Great Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams was the last player to hit over .400. Williams was hitting just .400 with two games to go when his manager suggested that he sit out the last games to preserve his historic batting average. Williams said he wanted to be a .400 hitter for the whole season and rapped out six hits in the last two games to finish at the now-famous number.

56 The same year (1941) that Ted Williams was hitting .406, New York Yankees star Joltin' Joe DiMaggio got a hit in 56 straight games. The streak was stopped when Cleveland third baseman Ken Keltner made two spectacular plays on DiMaggio smashes. Pete Rose's 44-game streak in 1978 is as close as anyone has come to 56.

755 Henry Aaron's amazing record for career home runs. A model of consistency, Hammerin' Henry never hit more than 47 home runs in a season. But for 20 straight years, he never hit fewer than 20. Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez might one day break this record, but it will take good health and consistency.

110 Walter Johnson's record for most career shutouts is my nominee for the most incredible pitching number ever. The Washington Senators' fireballing righthander started 666 games in his Hall of Fame career. That means Johnson did not allow the other team to score even a single run in about one out of every six games he pitched. No wonder they named the high school in Bethesda after him.

2,632 The latest, and maybe the greatest, of baseball great numbers: Cal Ripken Jr.'s mind-boggling record for most consecutive games played. What makes the Iron Man's mark so incredible is that he played most of the games at shortstop, one of the most physically demanding positions on the diamond. No one is within 12 seasons of breaking this record.

3 This was the number worn by Babe Ruth, maybe the greatest baseball player of all. Players did not wear numbers in the early days of the game. The Yankees began wearing numbers in 1929. Why did the Babe wear No. 3? The Bambino was the third hitter in the Yankees' batting order. Lou Gehrig hit behind Ruth, so Gehrig wore No. 4.

.200 Not all baseball numbers are great. For example, no batter wants a batting average below .200. The number is so feared that players have given it a special name, "The Mendoza Line." It was named after Mario Mendoza, an infielder who had an average below .200 five times in his nine seasons (1974-1982).

1918 Another bad number. This is the last year that the Boston Red Sox, led by Ruth, won the World Series. It was the Sox' fourth World Series win in seven years. But after the 1919 season, the Sox sold Ruth to the Yankees and haven't won a Series since. The Yankees have won 26.

But don't feel so bad for Boston fans. They haven't waited as long as Chicago fans. No Chicago baseball team has won a World Series since 1917! And Chicago has had two teams (the Cubs and the White Sox) all those years. That's 170 baseball seasons without winning the big prize.

It's been a long time since Chicago baseball fans could cheer, "We're No. 1."