What-ifs are a central part of being a baseball fan. We like to think about how things would have turned out if the main player had been injured, or if the team had signed a free agent instead. Another if legendary, like the legendary night in the late 1940s when, during a drunken night with Tom Yawkey at Toots Shor’s Midtown Manhattan, Yankees owner Dan Topping nearly traded Joe DiMaggio to the Red Sox for Ted Williams. Some weren’t revealed until decades later, like when Barry Bonds said on the Opening Night Netflix broadcast last month that he would have played for the Yankees instead of the Giants if George Steinbrenner hadn’t made him a take-it-or-leave-it offer.
We all have our own preferences, too. Here are a few of mine: What would it have been like if New York City newspapers hadn’t gone on strike in 1978? What if Eric Gregg hadn’t been the home plate umpire for Livan Hernandez’s start in Game 5 of the 1997 NLCS? What if Dottie Hinson hadn’t dropped the ball, or Jimmy Dugan had just passed out the booze? One of the most important ones that would have had a huge impact on the world beyond baseball. What if the Black Sox hadn’t thrown the 1919 World Series? What if Curt Flood had not challenged the nature reserve clause? What if George W. Bush had been appointed commissioner of baseball?
We won’t examine any of the above for what’s in this week’s mailbag, but three of the four questions we answer below focus on one fact, one where Mookie Betts was always shorthanded, Ford Frick never got Bill Veeck out of baseball, and the starting pitcher was league average in everything but throwing strikes. One hypothetical question, which is where we’ll start, is whether teams have more success when they hit a hit than when they score at least four runs without a single. But first, I’d like to remind you that this post bag is only available to FanGraphs members. If you are not yet a Member and would like to continue learning, you can sign up for Membership here. It’s the best way to experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with tons of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question about a future mailbag, email me at mailbag@fangraphs.com.
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