It's Pi Day, the geekiest holiday of the year (that's 'pi' as in π = 3.14 = March 14 = 3/14)! It's time to carry on the tradition from last year, where we honor any ballplayers who had a 'Pi (π) Career' – that is, they ended their careers with "3-1-4 career _____".
I'm also included players who managed any pi numbers in the 2011 season.
Without further ado, here are this year's 'Pi (π) Players':
2011 Season
.314 On-Base Percentage: Coco Crisp
.314 Slugging Percentage: (none)
3.14 ERA: Scott Baker
.314 True Average: Jose Reyes, Michael Morse, Hunter Pence, Evan Longoria
3.14 FIP: Tim Lincecum
Career Pitching
3.14 ERA (min. 1,000 IP): Bert Gallia, Leon Cadore, Tug McGraw, Mike Marshall, Mike Cuellar
314 Wins: Gaylord Perry
314 Complete Games: Joe McGinnity, Burleigh Grimes
314 Quality Starts: Kevin Brown
314 Saves: Robb Nen
Career Batting
.314 Average (min. 1,000 Games): Bibb Falk, Cecil Travis
.314 On-Base Percentage: Mookie Wilson, Marlon Anderson, Bobby Tolan, Terry Kennedy, Don Kessinger and 8 others
.314 Slugging Percentage: Otis Nixon, Abraham Nunez, Jose Uribe, Jimmy Austin, Miller Huggins
314 HR: Reggie Smith, Mark Teixeira*
314 Doubles: Pete Fox, A.J. Pierzynski*
314 Stolen Bases: Andre Dawson
As I said last year, I think that these players should be remembered every Pi Day (especially the less familiar names, like Bibb Falk or Bert Gallia).
To add on to this year's festivities, I challenge anyone at Spring Training today (and that means the beat writers too!) to take a photo similar to the one above, but featuring this year's players. In Rays' camp, that would mean the stunning star power of Evan Longoria and David Price, but they don't all have to be so shining. From the active rosters found on MLB.com, here are the teams I believe are capable of this photo:
- Baltimore Orioles, #3 Ryan Flaherty and #14 Nolan Reimold
- Tampa Bay Rays, #3 Evan Longoria and #14 David Price
- Pittsburgh Pirates, #3 Chase d'Arnaud and #14 Casey McGehee
- Washington Nationals, #3 Wilson Ramos and #14 Chris Marrero
- Los Angeles Dodgers, #3 Adam Kennedy and #14 Mark Ellis
- San Diego Padres, #3 Andy Parrino and #14 Mark Kotsay
- Colorado Rockies, #3 Michael Cuddyer and #14 Tommy Field
In fact, the Rockies could make their photo go all out. A lineup of (in order) Cuddyer, Field, Jeremy Guthrie (#15), DJ LeMahieu (#9), Troy Tulowitzki (#2), Alex White (#6), and Carlos Gonzalez (#5) would give us 3.14159265 – which would be extraordinary. If anyone in the Rockies organization could make this spectacular picture happen, I'd be a happy man. Other teams might be able to use different combinations of jersey numbers to make this happen – like, say, 31-41-5-9-26 – but I'm not going to try and figure all those combinations out.
Really, I just want to see one good photo for Pi Day, but it's okay if that doesn't happen. After all, we still have Otis Nixon and Gaylord Perry and everyone else. Happy Pi Day!
Thank you for reading
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(Though, to be clear, I meant a lineup within a photo - like with the players shoulder-to-shoulder. I clarified the text a bit just to be sure.)
Two AL Central teams have pi pairings among players with retired numbers: the Twins (Harmon Killebrew (#3) and Kent Hrbek (#14)) and the Indians (Earl Averill (#3) and Larry Doby (#14)). As far as Wikipedia knows, they're the only two teams to have retired the pi jerseys.