Google Earth is my new friend. I know I am about 2-3 years behind on this one, but I spent about an hour today locating various places. I found my apartment, my parents house, Knob Hill, etc. The best part is finding baseball and football stadiums. I even toured Iraq and Afghanistan a little. I think it is remarkable, and a little scary, that you can focus so closely on different parts of the world.
At some point after Big Brown lost the Belmont Stakes today, one of the announcers claimed "...and that's why the Triple Crown is the most difficult achievement in sports". Fist of all, many would argue that horse racing is not a sport. I'm going to argue that it is not the most difficult achievement.
Achieving the title has got to be ruled out, because someone will win it every year. Looking at it statistically, each of the 30 teams in MLB have a 3.3% chance of winning the title in any given year, assuming the winner is randomly chosen.
Compare those odds to horse racing. There are usually around 20 horses in the Kentucky Derby, but that field thins out by the Belmont to only around 10 - let's say the average for the 3 is 15 horses in each race. If the winner was randomly selected, you've got a .0296% chance of picking the same horse to win the three races (assuming I've remembered enough of my statistics course). There have been 11 Triple Crown winners over the 100 plus years of the racing trifecta, which shows the winners aren't random.
Here's my list of in rank of difficulty. Keep in mind, you have to ignore anything superhuman, like kicking a 70+ yard field goal.
8. Unassisted Triple Play - this is more based on circumstance and luck than skill. Just because it is extremely rare, doesn't mean it is difficult. Between 1927 and 1992, there has only been one. Since then, there have been 5, including Asdrubal Cabrera's play this year for the Indians.
7. Bowling 300
6. Hitting a hole in one - I was tempted to move this higher, but it takes one lucky shot. The other feats must be repeated over time.
5. Triple Crown of horseracing - It may be difficult, but it's not the most difficult.
4. Grand Slam of golf - with such a huge pool of participants, almost any of them can have a good weekend and steal one. Nobody's done it, not even Tiger. (yet)
3. Pitching a perfect game - I love the romanticism that is associated with a no-hitter or a perfect game. It's unlike any other experience in sports because the team game suddenly becomes focused on just one player. Part of the beauty is that it comes unexpectedly - it could happen at any moment.
2. Batting .400+ in a season - Sorry Chipper, it's not going to happen.
1. Triple crown of baseball - It requires you to be the best power hitter and the best contact hitter - for 140 or so games.
I will leave you with this: the Tigers currently have the 26th worst record in baseball.
6 comments:
I love the stats you come up with.
Your list...
Bowling a 300? 7th? Look at 8th on your list! 6 unassisted triple plays in MLB HISTORY! Do you know how many people have bowled perfect games? Every professional on the PBA tour, most hardcore league players, hell my dad has bowled a perfect game! You know who else has bowled a perfect game before??? MY GRANDMA! No joke. Ask her about it, she'll be glad to tell you the story. She used to be in a ladies league back in the day. Point is, not as hard to come by as you think.
.400 is harder than the triple crown in my opinion. 15 guys have done the triple crown in the modern era. People flirt with the triple crown all the time, but hardly anyone can flirt with .400 into August/September.
No 56-game hitting streak??? That's the record most think will never be broken. I'd put it on the list.
I also think the golf grand slam is harder than a perfect game. There have been 17 perfect games, by guys like David Wells. Like a hole in one, it's sometimes better to be lucky than good. To win a golf grand slam you have to be damn good all year, not just for a moment.
Just using the list of 8 you have, I'd order them like this:
8. Bowling a 300
7. Hole in One
6. Unassisted Triple Play
5. Triple Crown of Horse Racing
4. Pitching a Perfect Game
3. Triple Crown of Baseball
2. Batting .400
1. Grand Slam of Golf
Good list, but half the entries are from baseball. There must be some things from football, hockey, and (especially )basketball that are at least worthy of making the list, if not #1.
You mentioned the grand slam of golf, what about the grand slam of tennis?
What about winning multiple olympic medals? Has anyone ever won gold medals at both the winter and summer games?
The unassisted triple play ranks lower because it is much more about luck than skill - the list is difficulty, not rarity. I'd say unassisted triple play is 15% skill, 85% luck and circumstance. I believe bowling 300 would be something like 65% skill, 35% luck. I did miss the hit streak, you're right. Going back, I'd put that 3rd or 4th.
Kevin, you caught me. I knew while I was writing this, I was skewed too much to baseball. I think that is because stats are so much more important to baseball than other sports. Grand slam of golf is definitely more difficult than that of tennis. With tennis, it is you versus your opponent, but with golf, it is everyone individually versus the course. Looking at the numbers, however, shows that you're right. Only 2 men and 3 women have done it, although Rod Laver did it twice.
Eddie Eagan is the only person to have won a Gold at the Summer and Winter Olympics. He won the boxing gold in 1920 and bobsled gold in 1932. I imagine not too many people have tried it.
Hmmm...difficulty and rarity. That's tough to distinguish, don't you think? If you say the list is about things that are difficult to do, and more people have bowled three hundred than have gotten an unassisted triple play, wouldn't that make it less difficult because it is more common? I don't know, it's tough for me to wrap my head around the differences.
Can anyone think of any good football records that will never be broken? All I can think of is Favre's streak...but that's kind of lame.
I'm just throwing out ideas here, I have no idea where these would rank...
Football: Pass, catch, and run for a TD in the same game. I think LT might have done it? 2000 yards rushing in a season? 5000 passing in a season? Or whatever a good mark would be for receivers....
Hockey: 200 point season? For goalies a GAA for the seson under 1?
Basketball: Quadruple-double? Average a triple double for a season?
Yea, LT has done it. Those football records, I feel, are difficult...but I think they're less difficult than some of the baseball ones. Then again I'm biased towards baseball.
A quadruple double...they've been done...but if someone could average one, I'd say that would be downright remarkable in this day and age.
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