Ruane: Unique batting lines
From SABR member Tom Ruane at Retrosheet on August 26, 2012:
Have you ever looked at a strange batting line and wondered if it was unique in baseball history? For example, on August 25, 2011, Curtis Granderson had two hits in four at-bats, scored four runs and drove in five. So his line in the box score looked as follows:
AB R H RBI1 Granderson 4 4 2 5Was this the first time a line like that had appeared in a major league box score? Well, no. As it turns out, two other players had that line before Granderson, Ron Fairly in 1964 and Devon White in 1998. But there are plenty of others that are unique.
Between the beginning of 1920 (when the RBI became an official statistic) and the end of 2011, there have been 1314 different batting lines. The most common? Well, here are the ten most popular.
Read the full article here: http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/retro_fun3.htm#A120826
Related link: Diane Firstman embarked on a similar project to catalog “canonical batting lines” in May 2012 (Value Over Replacement Grit)
Originally published: August 27, 2012. Last Updated: August 27, 2012.