The productive plunkers

Friday, August 14, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry

Buck Showalter walked over to the rest of the "Baseball Tonight" pod in Bristol on Thursday night holding a stat sheet in his hand and bearing the kind of expression he has when he's seen something very interesting. He was holding a list of the total hit-by-pitches stats for the majors this year.

"What do these teams have in common?" he asked. "The Yankees. The Red Sox. The Phillies. The Rangers. The Angels. The Dodgers."

Well, those are the teams having the best seasons in the majors, somebody responded.

"Those are the leaders in batters hit," Buck said.

Hmmm. Does it mean something, such as a reflection of the philosophy of those teams regarding pitching inside? Does it mean nothing? Is it a coincidence?

I don't know. But Buck's right: Those are very interesting numbers.

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

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