Baseball pitching stats and Obama and Trump

The Island Now

It’s heartbreaking to hear the medical news about the former Mets great pitcher Tom Seaver. He was a great starting pitcher. I won’t go into his stats, but the bottom line is that Mr. Seaver is a Hall of Famer.

In 1969, when the Mets won the World Series, he had a record of 25 wins with only 7 losses and won the first of his three Cy Young Awards. Of the 35 games he started that year, he had 18 complete games. For the other 17 games, a relief pitcher like Tug McGraw finished the game and thus saved it for Mr. Seaver.

But what is the definition of a save? There are three ways for a relief pitcher to get a save and they are as follows:
1. If McGraw entered the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitched for at least one inning.
2. He entered the game, regardless of the score, with the potential tying run either on base, at bat, or on deck.
3. He pitched for at least three innings.

Let’s say Seaver pitched 7 innings and left the game with a lead of 6-0. McGraw relieved, pitched the final 2 innings and the Mets ended up scoring 2 more runs that resulted in an 8-0 victory. Seaver gets the win and according to the rules, McGraw does not get the save.

But what has all this got to do with Obama and Trump?

Obama became president in 2008, during the worst recession caused by the mortgage crisis that began in December 2007.

During Obama’s eight-year presidency, his policies helped turn the economy around substantially. Trump came in as a reliever in 2017, long after the recession had ended, and continued this turnaround.

Ask any baseball statistician and they would tell you that according to the rules, Obama should be credited with the win and since Obama’s turnaround was so great before Trump took over, Trump probably should not even be credited with a save.

Unfortunately, changing the rules is an integral part of Trump’s game.

If Trump keeps playing his game, it might be hard to save our country. Let’s make America sane again.

Since 1776, our country has been great. Why change a good thing?

Alvin H. Goldberg

Great Neck

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