What Does ‘3,000 Hits’ Really Mean?
By DOUG GLANVILLE
NYT
Raleigh, N.C.
THE Yankees released me from my contract in 2005. Several years later, I texted Derek Jeter, who still had the same cellphone number, to ask whether he would inscribe a bat to my newborn son. (It arrived the next day; this is the Derek Jeter I know.) Now a few more years have gone by, and Jeter, 37; my son, 3; and my daughter, nearly 2, all find themselves very much tangled up in ... numbers.
Jeter, after a stint on the disabled list, returned this week to the Yankees lineup, where he had a date with his 3,000th career hit. The children are in the early stages of learning to count. My son can safely get to 20, though he always skips 15, and 15, as it happens, is exactly where my daughter tails off (for her, six is the number that apparently has cooties and gets skipped). My kids don’t attach a lot to what these, or any, numbers mean.
Yet their father’s life in baseball was very much about numbers. I was evaluated according to my batting average, my stolen-base percentage, my salary. Even retroactively, sabermetric terms measure previously unheard-of abilities, like my B.A.B.I.P. That’s Batting Average on Balls in Play, which I certainly didn’t take to arbitration when I was a player.
But it wasn’t until I retired six years ago and had the luxury of reflection that I started to understand how all these numbers fit into the big picture, beyond how I performed for someone’s fantasy team that week. And I’ve concluded that I owe it to my kids to teach them that numbers can tell a story, especially in the game that meant so much to their father.
(More here.)
NYT
Raleigh, N.C.
THE Yankees released me from my contract in 2005. Several years later, I texted Derek Jeter, who still had the same cellphone number, to ask whether he would inscribe a bat to my newborn son. (It arrived the next day; this is the Derek Jeter I know.) Now a few more years have gone by, and Jeter, 37; my son, 3; and my daughter, nearly 2, all find themselves very much tangled up in ... numbers.
Jeter, after a stint on the disabled list, returned this week to the Yankees lineup, where he had a date with his 3,000th career hit. The children are in the early stages of learning to count. My son can safely get to 20, though he always skips 15, and 15, as it happens, is exactly where my daughter tails off (for her, six is the number that apparently has cooties and gets skipped). My kids don’t attach a lot to what these, or any, numbers mean.
Yet their father’s life in baseball was very much about numbers. I was evaluated according to my batting average, my stolen-base percentage, my salary. Even retroactively, sabermetric terms measure previously unheard-of abilities, like my B.A.B.I.P. That’s Batting Average on Balls in Play, which I certainly didn’t take to arbitration when I was a player.
But it wasn’t until I retired six years ago and had the luxury of reflection that I started to understand how all these numbers fit into the big picture, beyond how I performed for someone’s fantasy team that week. And I’ve concluded that I owe it to my kids to teach them that numbers can tell a story, especially in the game that meant so much to their father.
(More here.)
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