Standing on the shoulders of Giants

Monday, July 12

A Walk on the Wild Side

Chin Music, with Jason Jurgens.

There have been some great walkers throughout history: Moses, leader of the exodus; Marco Polo, Italian traveller and latter day pin-up; John Muir, naturalist and explorer; and pretty much everyone pre-Henry Ford.

What about Barry Bonds?

This year, the venerable 240-pounder has strolled to first a total of 131 times in 325 plate appearances, or 40% of the time. Only two Major Leaguers, Lance Berkman and Bobby Abreu, have as many walks as Bonds does intentional ones, with 71. The top ten most walked players in Major League Baseball, excluding Bonds, have 58 intentional walks between them.

Over the course of his regular season career, baseball's proverbial "Man of the Millenium" has walked on 2201 occasions. With the distance between home and first base being 90 feet, this equates to 198,090 feet--or 37.26 miles--from bases on balls.

Not bad for a guy who barely chases down fly balls. Oh, and lets not
forget all the times Bonds has walked to first after hitting a ground
ball. Then there's 681 Home Run trots, at 360 feet apiece. All in all, that's at least 100 miles. Not bad, but all in a weeks work for Mr Muir--at, presumably, a fraction of the price.