Jinxes and Cycles
Posted: April 30th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 35 Comments »
I don’t believe in curses. I don’t believe in jinxes. I don’t believe in hexes.
But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t sweating a bit during the first inning Wednesday.
In that column you will also get the bonus tag “Billy Cycle” — which we* came up with in press box. It is in honor of Billy Butler’s single-double-home run-home run day on Wednesday. Butler is one heck of a young hitter. But, really, that’s as close as he’s getting to a cycle. It would take two acts of Congress and at least one natural disaster for him to hit a triple. His best best it to hit the second homer and stop at third.
*I should say here, for fairness sake, that it was my good friend Bob Dutton who came up with the term Billy Cycle, though I would like to believe I was the one who first appreciated its true value.
For the record, there have been 323 Billy Cycles hit since 1954. Ken Griffey, Moises Alou and Juan Gonzalez are the all-time Billy Cycles leaders with four apiece.
There are 12 who have hit three Billy Cycles in the career, and among them you have five Hall of Famers, four possible future Hall of Famers and three really good players. No flukes among the players who have hit three Billy Cycles:
Hall of Famers who have three Billy Cycles
1. Willie Stargell
2. Mickey Mantle
3. Joe Morgan
4. Cal Ripken
5. Frank Robinson
Possible future Hall of Famer who have three Billy Cycles
1. Mike Piazza
2. Vlad Guerrerro
3. Barry Bonds
4. Carlos Beltran
Three really good players:
1. Reggie Smith
2. Tino Martinez
3. Andruw Jones
MannyBManny, Hank Aaron, Mark McGwire, Chipper Jones, Mike Schmidt and Big John Mayberry all had two Billy Cycles — in fact, we really should called it the “Big John Cycle,” in honor of our friend John Mayberry. In all, 37 players have hit two Billy Cycles. Randy Jackson hit two Billys. Reggie Jackson hit one.
And then, though this only goes back to 1954 and thus does not cover his entire career, it appears that Willie Mays never had a Billy Cycle. Willie Randolph did. Willie Montanez did. Willie McCovey, Willie Jones, Willie Davis — yes. No Willie Mays. Then again, George Hendrick, George Scott and George Foster had Billy Cycles but no George Brett. Weird.
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First. What is the circle me bert reference about?
Must say that the SI jinx is bogus. Never believed in it and never will.
Greinke, if he can keep his head on straight, will be a force for a long time.
And I think that if Bengie Molina can get a triple (had one last night), Butler can do it also …
Yeah, dude, not only Bengie Molina, but Victor Martinez as well. No one out-slows Victor Martinez. Not even Ryan Garko.
Don’t let the SI Jinx fans get to you Joe. There’s a fine line between good and great, or good and bad at the highest levels. And let’s face it, you have to have done something amazing to get on the SI cover, because you’re cometing against all sports as well as your own. Obviously you’re not going to have too many career highlight moments in a player’s career.
Did people think Zack was going to improve on 4-0, 0.00? There’s no way any pitcher could go through a season with no earned runs allowed.
Keep up the great writing Joe!
The SI so-called “jinx” is just regression to the mean.
“Circle me Bert” refers to Bert Blyleven on Twins telecasts. Fans hold up signs in hope that Blyleven will circle them with his telestrator.
Butler already has two career triples. I don’t know if an outfielder broke his leg on either play, which seems like the obvious answer, but it isn’t impossible. And he did score from first on Jacobs’ double. He is not a hopeless runner.
Granted, when you average one triple per season, then the odds of that day matching up with a day in which you get the other three legs are fairly astronomical.
Greinke was awesome again last night.
All three runs scored against him this season are due to Coco’s crappy arm. The unearned run last time out came when he couldn’t throw the ball directly to third base and Aviles’ relay hit Laird in the leg. And the two runs last name came after a routine single was played into a double followed by the runner going from first to third on a short single.
A center fielder with a C- arm prevents all three from happening. Which is not to say he hasn’t been a good player for us, covers a lot of ground, really shown an improved eye and been solid for us on the bases. But his arm is brutal bad.
Butler would have had a much better shot at a triple if Coco had been out there in the bottom half of the innings.
Hideki Matsui hit a triple the other night. And last night Jorge Posada stole (really!) second. So Butler may yet hit a triple . . .
theres a joe Paul Pierce article on cnnsi
Willie Mays has 100% of the vote right now (61 votes) and I see no reason for that to change.
Bengie’s triple was hit at home in what is arguably the best park in the majors for hitting a triple (I’m guessing here, don’t kknow the actual stats on this), so maybe if the Royals play the Giants in interleague then Billy could hit a triple.
That’s my problem with cycles. They’re not even the best thing you can do at the plate. A no hitter is more or less the best thing a pitcher can do (okay, a perfect game is obviously, but unless your control is so horrible you’re walking in a lot of runs, the no hitter is pretty close), but a cycle is really more of a fancy “Look, they hit one of each” thing and not the best accomplishment. A “Billy cycle” which is far more common due to the fact that triples aren’t that easy to get is more valuable than a real cycle. Someone who hits 2 home runs and 2 doubles is forgotten about the next day, but that’s way more valuable than a guy hitting a cycle.
A pitcher throwing a no hitter means it’s extremely likely your team won the game as a result of it. The cycle? Meh, it only guarantees you one run. It’s impressive, don’t get me wrong, but I just find it odd that if a guy got to the plate in the ninth with a home run, triple, and double, people would care a lot less if he were to hit a home run than if he hit a single.
The first time I took my son to Fenway, David Ortiz had two triples, which was much more memorable than the loss to the Orioles.
To Kyle @ 10: It’s true. A cycle is more of an oddity than an accomplishment. A homer, triple and 2 doubles is better than a cycle, for example, but would be forgotten right away.
To Curtis @ 6: You’re right about the long odds of matching up your annual triple with the 3 other legs of the cycle. But I thought I recall reading or hearing about someone (maybe a catcher) who had 2 career triples and hit for the cycle both times. It might have even been in this blog that I read it. It was within the last 2 years, I think (that I read it or heard it, not that it happened).
And I don’t know if this is still the case, but within the last few years it was pointed out on a Mets telecast that cycles occur slightly less often than no-hitters. As a statistical matter, this made it absoultely astonishing that the Mets have had 9 or 10 cycles but 0 no-hitters. (Triple plays are also less common than no-hitters, and I believe the Mets have 2 or 3 of those).
Keith Woolner of Baseball Prospectus came up with the idea of the “supercycle” a few years back. He defined it as:
Supercycle – A game where the batter has at least four hits, including at least one home run, two hits that are either home runs or triples, and three hits that are either home runs, doubles or triples.
See the article at (subscription required?):
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2169
Triples must run in the Molina family because Yadier has one as well.
I was at a Cardinals game and Yadi Molina hit a triple. I couldn’t stop cackling like a lunatic for an entire inning, cause you could tell out of the box he was going to try to leg it for three. Best moment of a good start to a season. Well, himm stealing a base of of Jon Rauch a few days later is also up there.
The Billy Cycle is nice. But far more impressive to me is what I saw Connor Jackson do last season with the Diamondbacks. (A Co-Jack Cycle?)
Last year he entered his last at-bat with a single, triple and homer, needing only a double. He hit the ball into the gap and made it to second easily … but he kept going on to third for his second triple of the game!! And the next batter hit a sac fly to bring him home.
So how often has this happened, where a player bypasses a cycle to get a second triple?
Re: The number polls, I think that Manny should definitely be in the poll for best number 24 ever. I’m not saying he should be the choice, it is probably Mays even if Manny is in the discussion, but there is no way Bill Bradley should be in the discussion before Manny.
I really dislike Roger Clemens, but PEDs be damned, I cannot fathom how Roberto Clemente can be considered a better #21 than Roger Clemens, and by a wide margin in the poll. If the poll was “best human being to wear” number 21, than Clemente beats Clemens. Clemente is the beneficiary of a halo effect by virtue of dying in a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission.
Clemens top comparables (b-ref): Big Unit, Maddux, Seaver, Carlton.
Clemente top comparables: Wheat, Goslin, Pinson, Oliver.
As rated strictly by on the field accomplishments, no way is Clemente near Clemens. You could make a far more compelling argument for Spahn over Clemens, but Spahn doesn’t get his due because of recency bias (and I think Spahn ultimately falls short anyway).
I’m not enough of an NBA fan to really accurately gauge, but I would imagine Tim Duncan is one of the top couple power forwards in NBA history, so maybe he is a legitimate choice over Clemens, but not Clemente.
“Hall of Famers who have three Billy Cycles
1. Willie Stargell”
Maybe it should be called a Pops-Cycle.
“Tino Cycle” should have been a thing. Tino had solo, two-run, and three-run home runs in his first three at bats one day. He got three chances with the bases loaded after that, but didn’t hit another one out. I think it was an ESPN game, because the memory of the game is tainted by Berman slobber.
@Lance #16:
and, the corollary, has anyone ever been a double short of a cycle, hit a ball that would’ve been an easy triple, yet stopped at second to get the cycle?
that would be akin to the NBA player a few years ago who launched a terrible shot off the backboard just so he could grab his own rebound and finish with a triple-double. (They didn’t give it to him.)
Jake #20 –
Or, even worse, Brett Favre AND Michael Strahan colluding to get Strahan the NFL single-season sacks record in the last game of 2001.
@Peanut, #19:
April 2, 1997. Tino actually only(!) got two chances with the bases loaded, and was walked in the second (he grounded out the first time). He also singled in one other AB. All in all, 7 RBI and 3 HR is nothing to sneeze at, but as you say, easily forgotten.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA199704020.shtml
Only 10 votes for Drexler, come on now. He was awesome, and yes I did grow up in Portland in the 80s
How good was Roger Clemens without steroids? We’ll never know. On the playing field he seemed to be the bad kind of win at all costs player, head hunting, screaming, throwing bats.
How good was Roberto Clemente if he hadn’t died at age 38? His final season he had an OPS+ of 137, batted .312, won another gold glove, reached 3,000 career hits, despite playing much of his career at the best time for pitchers in MLB history. He also received MVP consideration for the 12th time in 13 seasons. Admittedly, his times at plate did drop a little. But if he’d lived onwards, it’s absolutely within the realm of possibility that he would have retired #2 on the all time hits list (I don’t think he would have reached Cobb) while still being a defensive asset instead of a defensive liability like Rose was. He might not have been Ernie Banks in his love of the game of baseball, but I think everybody who saw Clemente play knew that he loved the game.
Oh, and he died while trying to help people in desperate need. Clemens’ personal life seems to involve a lot of adultery, denial, and possibly statutory rape. Maybe to you only between the lines actions should count. I didn’t see those instructions, though.
The poll question is “best”, not “greatest”. Given what I know, and what I have to assume, I think Clemente epitomizes best more than Clemens. Clearly I am not alone.
I can see the Clemente/Clemens discussion either way. Duncan, to me, however, is an easy choice over either. Awesome player, great leader, winner and a terriffic person as well. Clemente did not have the game impact of Dunacn, Clemens in my mind loses on humanity (or PED questions if you wish)
Continue to enjoy the Coco Crispie era in KC! Lots of long twitching at bats ending in poorly struck grounders or strike outs, great running catches but throws that don’t even make it to the cutoff man. A truly maddening player who always seems on the verge of becoming someone you want as your starting center fielder but never quite gets there…..
If John Buck can hit 2 triples in one game, there is still hope for Billy Butler.
Duncan absolutely gets my vote for #1. Without him, the Spurs are still waiting on a championship. Instead, they’ve got four.
It didn’t even occur to me to vote for any #21 other than Warren Spahn.
And also, Mike Bossy was better at his sport than any of the other #22s were at their sports.
George Brett did indeed hit for a Billy Cycle, in Game Three of the 1985 ALCS. Which was certainly the greatest and most significant single-game performance in Royals history.
Needless to say, if John Buck can notch two triples in one game, it can happen for Butler one day, too. It is not, of course, likely, but still.
No Rickey Henderson for #24? Joe, what gives?!?
And a write in vote for Fred Biletnikoff for #25 as well.
When Butler came up for his last AB, my buddy texted me and said that Butler could get the cycle with a triple. My response: That’ll only happen in the right fielder falls over….twice.
Do the Royals play at Citi Field anytime soon? Thus far the Mets’ new stadium has seen triples by such distinguished speedsters as Omir Santos, Fernando Tatis, Elijah Dukes, Carlos Delgado, Daniel Murphy, Gary Sheffield and Jeremy Reed. (Also Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Cameron Maybin, but those are to be expected.) I think Mo Vaughn could turn a ball into the RF-CF gap at Citi Field into a triple. And I mean Mo Vaughn in 2009.
Scoops- Tino came up with the bases loaded once in the sixth and twice in the ninth in that game.