Fact Check/Perspective

So our favorite whipping boy Murray Ch-Ass has enlightened us today. In speaking of how a pitcher can give up the tying run and then still get avictory if his team comes back the next half inning - he says "That's the way Elroy Face gained many of his 18 victories for Pittsburgh in 1959." Well, I'm sure Murray remembers is that way since he grew up a Pirates fan, but I'm not so sure it really was the case. What would you think "many" is? I looked it up and it was 5. Not an insignificant number, but not what I would categorize as many.

Of course by using "many", the linguist in me will say that he was hedging himself, since many usually refers to a number that can not be defined. But this is baseball. And there is this thing called the internet which allows these types of things to become crystal clear (like when Ryan said he "did not know the numbers on where Johnny damon ranked in 2005 in pitches per at bat, but it must be in the top 3" - turns out damon was something like 40th). So take the time and do some homework.

Oh and the perspective part of this post? The five games in which he blew leads for which he ended up being credited with victories represents the same number his 13 wins that Mariano Rivera has picked up in the same exact manner over the last 3 years. And Rivera is set up to pitch one inning at a time while Face was (more often than Rivera has been) asked to pitch 2 or 3 innings at a time.