Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

have thrown out runners at first preventing a SINGLE. can't find this stat?

anybodt out there?

I believe Clemente did it once or twice. I think the typical case was a poor RH batting pitcher who hit a sharp ground ball through the right side.

I wouldn't know where to begin looking for this.

every time i try it gives me outfield assists.

i remember seeing kaline and aaron just miss.

I don't know about in SOM, but Jayson Werth did that recently. It was a pitcher who was batting and loafing it to first. He was playing shallow and looking to take advantage.

Others who have supposedly done this - Andre Dawson, Mantle, and an unnamed LF (!) who got Sean Casey at first when Sean dogged it. (Assuming one can tell the difference between Casey dogging it and Casey's normal sprint.) The Mantle plays are usually described as gunning down a guy after a wide turn at first; I suspect Dawson is the same.

I suspect this was common in the dead ball era. I once read a fascinating interview with Joe Tinker describing how the Cubs' whole defense would be in motion as soon as the ball left the pitcher's hand. I don't know where to find the link any more, though. But in those circumstances, with guys hitting with their hands apart on the bat trying to steer the ball, it seems likely that RF's might have had many chances to pull this off.

There is a documented case where Clemente recorded an assist on a sac bunt. First and 3rd, Pirates smelled out the squeeze and the corners charged hard. The bunter pushed the ball past the first wave and Clemente threw out the runner from first at third base. This is described on Roberto's biography on baseball-reference.

This same article repeatedly refers to George Sisler as Clemente's batting coach with the Pirates. Sisler was a scout for the Pirates (and also with the Dodgers when Roberto was in Montreal), so perhaps he had an unofficial role somewhere.

I believe Larry Walker throough a guy out at 1st for the Expos.

[url=http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Chuck%20Klein]Baseball-Reference[/url] on Chuck Klein:[quote:0611dba1a4]Playing in the shallow right field of the Baker Bowl, where he sometimes turned singles into outs at first base, Klein still holds the record for most assists by an outfielder -- 44 in 1930.[/quote:0611dba1a4]

[url=http://www.retrosheet.org]Retrosheet.org[/url] has play-by-play info for nearly every game of the past 90 years or so. Once you learn how to do the searches (which I have not), it probably wouldn't even be that tough to pull all the OF assists at 1B out...

I seem to remember Sean Casey being thrown out at first by the leftfielder, but I believe there were other factors involved. Something to do with the fact he thought the 3B or SS caught his liner and he stopped running.