The Big, The Fat, and the Weighty

Two things inspired this post. Firstly, it is spring training time, the time where returning baseball players try to get back into shape and shed those winter pounds. Some have more work to do than others. Secondly, I just had bacon and birthday cake for lunch. It's good to know that there exists professonal athletes who have similar food standards as me.

Though lists like these have been done to death, we still enjoy rooting for the chubs. Their imperfections make them more like us, and what wouldn't we, the Joe Everymans, give to play Major League Baseball?

This is a short list of active players, though you'll notice some of these players are active in leagues other than the Major one. Perhaps I'll follow this list up with one full of rotund old-timers. Jumbo Brown, I'm looking your way.

Without further ado, here are a bunch of Major League fatties.


Calvin Pickering
Baseball-reference.com lists his weight as 275. The Kansas City T-bones, where he currently plays, scale him at 280. Wikipedia has him at 318. Which is it? I don't know, but at six-foot-five that's a whole lotta man out there on the baseball field, and as a first-baseman he makes for a healthy target. He spent 2006 playing ball in Korea where he was likely the largest thing any of them had ever seen.


Ronnie Belliard
More like Ronnie BELLY-ard, yuk yuk. Baseball-reference, always the conservative ones, list him at 180. The Nationals have him at 195. When he showed up to spring training in 2000 he topped 200. This wouldn't seem so bad were it not for the facts that A) Belliard is only five-foot-eight, and B) he's a second baseman. Though he's got surprisingly good range for being so squat, he doesn't have the sure hands of many of his other slimmer second base counterparts.
[Picture bonus: two pudges for the price of one.]


C.C. Sabathia
The Indians unabashedly list his weight at 290, though it wouldn't surprise me if he ekes over the 300 mark. Even at an imposing six-foot-seven that's still a whole bunch of pounds. But having just won the AL Cy Young award and the Warren Spahn award for best left-handed pitcher, maybe there's something to be said for pitchers with great girth.


Rich Garces
As a Major Leaguer his weight was listed at 250. Now a member of the Nashua Pride, they've got him down to 235. Do I believe either of those numbers are accurate? No way. Even if they were, El Guapo is only six feet tall and visibly very round.


Walter Young
I believe Young has the "official" Major League weight record when, weighing 315 pounds, he was called up by the Orioles in 2005. Now a member of the Winnipeg Goldeyes, he is "officially" down to 295.


David Wells
Despite being a 20-game winner, a three-time all-star, the 1998 ALCS MVP, and not to mention having once thrown a perfect game, people mostly think of David Wells as being that out-of-shape old guy. He is still listed at 250 pounds by MLB.com, but since being diagnosed with diabetes he's had to adjust his diet. He might be down to 248 at this point.


Chris Britton
Baseball-reference has him at 278, but MLB.com rounds (no pun intended) him up to 280. Considering George Steinbrenner's disdain for fat pitchers, Britton may want to think about losing a few (dozen) if he wants to stay on the organization's good side.


Frank Thomas
I'm not going to call Frank Thomas the Fat Hurt or anything like that, but it is obvious that he is an exceptionally large man. Officially his six-foot-five frame supports 275 pounds, and not all of it is chub. His baseball-hitting power comes mostly from his arms, and that becomes apparent when you see him hit a home run while standing on one foot.


Johnathan Broxton
Six-foot-four, 290 pounds? Are you kidding me? He hides it well under his baggy uniform, but there's a reason why Mark Grace calls him "The Biggest Man in the World."


Olmedo Saenz
A fan-favorite in L.A., Saenz will now have an opportunity to show off his pinch-hitting skillz in New York as he recently signed a minor-league contract with the Mets. Due to his roundess and his ability to smash a fastball, Saenz is affectionately known as The Killer Tomato. Physical attributes: six-foot-one, 230 pounds.

Mike Sweeney, ex-Royal

Mike Sweeney is no longer a Royal.

He's given Kansas City a lot of solid years, and though I'm sad to see him go I feel this is a good decision by Royal management. Injuries have only permitted him to play half-seasons for the last couple years, and Ryan Shealy and Ross Gload and Billy Butler have shown good potential to be everyday players either at first base or in the DH position. In short, the Royals kinda don't need Sweeney around anymore. He was terribly expensive anyways.

He's signed with the Athletic's organization now, so hopefully he'll have a good spring and be able to hang out on Oakland's bench this season. Of course, he also has the option of retiring, but that wouldn't be any fun for anybody.

There are two things I remember best about Mike Sweeney:
1) DC Talk's "Jesus Freak" used to be his come-to-bat song.
2) In a game in 2002 he lost his mind and charged then-Tiger pitcher Jeff Weaver.









That was a good fight, if such a thing can be said.
I suppose he could still do these things in a Sacramento River Cats uniform, but it just wouldn't be the same.

But if I ever find myself missing him too badly, there's always the Mike Sweeney bobblehead that sits atop the bookshelf in my livingroom, overseeing all with a thumbs up and a wry smile.













Looks just... like him?

The Numbers Game

Sometimes you can really get lost in the ocean of numbers that covers all of baseball. And by "you" I really mean "I". All it takes is some sort of slight statistical oddity to send me on some inconsequential goose chase, comparing percentages and making mental tallies.

Follow my latest contrail:
88 Topps Cards, a blog that features, well, 1988 Topps baseball cards, today talked about Jesse Orosco's card. Wanting to check out his career numbers I headed over to Jesse Orosco's Baseball-Reference.com page and scrolled through the numbers. I perused his batting stats (because I'm always interested in how well pitchers can hit) and noticed that in 1997 and 2002, despite being credited with zero at bats, he still managed to reach base. There's a number of ways to accomplish this, but most common is the walk. And indeed, in Orosco's only plate appearances in those two seasons he was walked; once in '97, and once in '02. What's more, these two plate appearances were the last two of his career. What's further more, in 2002 not only did he take ball four in his only plate appearance of the year, he also came around to score. If you read the seventh inning play-by-play, it's amusing to imagine the 44-year-old Orosco huffin' from first to second on a base hit, huffin' from second to third on another base hit, then gladly walking home on a Brian Jordan grand slam.

So then I got to thinkin', what other pitchers have scored following their only plate appearance of the season where they reached base via a walk? That's a lot of criteria, and you might expect the answer to be "once by Jesse Orosco in 2002", but it's happened twenty-four times since 1900. The last person to do it was Brandon Lyon of the D-backs in 2006. In fact, he did it in his only career plate appearance to date. The first? Somebody named, and I'm not making this up, Farmer Burns of the 1901 Cardinals. Besting Lyon's effort (sort of), not only was this the only plate appearance of his career, this was his only Major League game EVER. He made the best of it though by stealing a base. Good ol' Farmer Burns.

That's another tangent altogether, isn't it? Stolen bases by pitchers. I'll get right on it.

Anyway, that's how I waste hours at a time.