June 03, 2008
It Depends How You Look at It
Big League Stew wonders why the record for home runs by a second baseman is 42 and not 43:
If you've been reading the AP reports during Utley's current run to 21 HR, you'll see that it notes he has to hit 42 homers to tie both Rogers Hornsby (1922) and Davey Johnson (1973).
But as many have pointed out -- and at least one newspaper corrected -- Johnson actually hit 43 round trippers in '73, which would make him the sole single-season HR champ for 2B.
Why the mixup? Well, if you look at Johnson's home run log for '73, you'll see that he did hit 43 homers for the Braves that season. However, visiting the box score for the June 17 game against the Cubs shows that Johnson entered the game in the seventh inning as a pinch hitter for Sonny Jackson and responded with a three-run shot that gave Atlanta the lead.
But even though Johnson stayed in the game as a second baseman, the HR apparently counts at a pinch-hit, which is reflected in both the AP and the records at Baseball Almanac. (I'd try to doublecheck that at MLB.com, but the site keeps crashing my browser ... help?)
Although we tend to think of records as something concrete, they really aren't. If you define the record as "Home Runs as a Second Baseman" then 42 is correct. Davey Johnson was a pinch hitter, not a second baseman when he hit the extra home run. There's no reason to assume he would stay in the game. (By the way, it's possible to bat without a position. If you pinch run or pinch hit, then come up again in the same inning, you are listed as having no position in the second plate appearance.)
However, if you define the record as "Home Runs by a Second Baseman" then I think the record is 43. What I often do when I don't have play by play information is figure out the primary position for a fielder in a season, usually by most games played at a position that year. So if someone plays 100 games at second and 20 games at third in a particular year, I list him as a second baseman and count all his stats. Neither is more correct that the other. You do the best you can with the data that's available.
I think we can be pretty sure, however, that if Utley hits 44 homers, he'll have some second base record.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:45 AM
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Utley did start two games at first base this year but he did not homer in either game.
Hmmm...it would be interesting if Utley hit a few as a DH in an AL park this summer. That's probably unlikely because the Phillies probably would like his D to stay out of the DH.
S P,
It would be more likely that Howard would DH and Utley play first (which has been done several times by the Phils). The only DH possiblity more likely for the Phils is Burrell to DH and Werth or Taguchi in left, but Manuel is still likely to have Howard DH at least once to give him a day of partial rest without losing his bat.
