623 Innings Pitched in One Season?
by cgolden on Aug 14, 2008 4:24 PM CDT
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PrintSo I'm tooling around on MLB.com today, trying to avoid doing some actual work, when I stumbled across some stats that are surely wrong. I was looking at some historical pitching records when I saw that guys used to pitch 600+ innings in the late 1800's. Is that really possible?
Check out the line on John Clarkson from 1885: 53 Wins and 16 Losses - 70 GS, 68 CG, 623 IP, 1.85 ERA
How in the world is that possible? Did one guy start nearly every game for a team? How did he last 600 innings and continue to do that over the course of his career? Did he throw batting practice pitches up there or what?
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Not an error
He also pitched 620 innings in 1889.
If you look at BR’s single-season records page, 500-plus inning seasons were quite commonplace during that period.
I'm curious
How one person can be a member of 36 blogs!
I think you’ll find the numbers to be accurate. I know it sounds trite to say, but the game was simply different then, and yeah, you might liken the effort behind the pitches to that of BP pitches. Not really the right comparison, but the effort expended in pitching one game was much less than today.
I figured it was about Kerry Woods' senior year of high school...
…or one of Gustafson’s aces at UT in the 80s. Or maybe Dusty Baker’s idea of a good rookie season for Neftali Feliz.
Physician: Primum non nocere
Batter: First, make no out
Finish that sentence
I thought it was the Rangers’ bullpen — in August.
Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.
its true
with all of our technology and medicine and all this other stuff now we cant even come close to 300 IP
Feliz and Hurley. The 1-2 punch of the future
Or maybe
we’re finally smart enough now to not abuse arms like that.
Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.
1900
Do anyone know why the modern era of baseball starts in 1900? Were there some rule changes of something?
Nolan Ryan should be the Rangers president, GM, manager and pitching coach.
American League started around then
World Series came into being (1901).
Also, sometime around then they changed the way walks counted statistically. Not sure about those details though.
This site has the chronology of rules
you can see the types of things that were settled around 1900. For example, foul balls weren’t always strikes…
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/excerpts/rules_chronology2.stm
1900
When Jamie Moyer was drafted, and Julio Franco made his debut.
Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.
Don't forget it was the year...
that John Franco was on the cusp of a callup to the big leagues.
Stars in a Texas Night Sky, a Dallas Stars blog from a fan's perspective.
Yeah, I've heard about him.
He’s completed that many games, even losses? Pitchers that are losing today are usually taken out as soon as they get into trouble!
He who hesitates is tagged out between first and second base.
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