Showdown with Michael Hunt

If you explore world history in any meaningful fashion, you are probably already aware of the recurring importance of one day ever year, March 6th. Year after year, without fail, monumental and life-changing events occur on this very day.

For the skeptical readers out there who do not study world history, I provide the following list of major events which happened on the sixth of March: Mega Millions gives away their highest jackpot ever, $370 million(2007), Bubba Sparxxx is born (1977), the Second Annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (1996), Aravinda De Silva smashes 145 vs. Kenya in cricket World Cup (1996), the birth of Greg Ostertag (1973), the Yankees defeated the New York Mets 6-4 in an exhibition game which doubled as their first meeting in over four years (1989), Walter Cronkite ends his reign as anchor of CBS Evening news (1981), Larry Hisle becomes the first designated hitter ever in an exhibition against the Pittsburgh Pirates (1973), Shaquille O' Neal is born (1972), Treaty of Paris (1323), KP successfully eats an entire Papa Johns Pizza in under ten minutes (2008), Jack Nicklaus passes Arnold Palmer as golf's all-time money winner (1972), and of course, Mike Tyson TKO's Hector Mercedes in the very first round of his very first professional fight (1985). So it should come as very little surprise that March 6th was the date that the most historical moment in Just a Bit Outside history occurred; a Michael Hunt live chat featuring yours truly.

I've often thought about what I might say to Mr. Hunt if given the chance, and when the opportunity presented itself, I fought back any urges to swear or call him a dick and decided to go with:

Mr. Hunt, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited about the upcoming baseball season, and especially the Brewers. One thing that I have found as I have gotten older is that there is a greater emphasis on statistics in baseball than ever before. Alot of people cite statistics like OPS and VORP, but how accurately can they truly predict the success of an individual or a team? What statistics do you use when evaluating a baseball player/team and which ones could you do without? Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I'm amazed at the politeness too, you're not alone. Anyways, my reason for asking this question isn't because I care at all about what statistics Michael Hunt is interested in, because I can't think of anything that I care about less. Instead, I was hoping that this question might bait our beloved Michael Hunt into saying something totally absurd like "I think the only way you can evaluate a player is to just look at him, you can just tell", or "batting average", "whatever Steve Phillips says" or "RBIs". To his credit, Michael Hunt did not say anything outlandish and even provided a mostly coherent and logical answer:


Michael Hunt - Good morning everyone, and thanks for stopping by. Upfront I need to mention that I'm feeling a little under the weather, so if the answers are short I hope you understand. Anyway, we'll endeavor to persevere on such a beautiful day - I can look out the window and see just about all the snow in the yard has melted - and get to as many of your questions as we can. We'll start with KP because it's starting to feel like baseball weather. KP, as a baseball traditionalist I nevertheless enjoy the modern stats, especially OPS. It's a good way of measuring a hitter's overall effectiveness. But some, like VORP, just makes my head hurt worse than it does at the moment. For me, on-base percentage is still the best stat. If you're getting on base, you're not using up any of your outs. For pitchers, I always look at strikeouts to walks. As cliche as it sounds, you can't win without throwing strikes.

I appreciate Michael Hunt showing some basic knowledge of baseball statistics. In fact, I am so impressed with the fact that he at least has a fundamental sense of what to look for that I am not going to make fun of him for not understanding VORP. March 6th, 2009 is truly a day that shall go down in history, as A)Michael Hunt was coherent for an entire chat, B)I was given the opportunity to make fun of Michael Hunt and passed on it, and C)my level of appreciation for Michael Hunt is no longer a negative number. I look forward to our next encounter, Michael.