Zack Hample: Watching Baseball Smarter

This past year was especially good for Zack Hample, author of the best-selling book Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks.

Better known as “The Baseball Collector,” Zack has amassed a staggering total of 3,820 baseballs from 44 different major league stadiums – and he closed out the 2008 season by snagging home runs on consecutive nights at Yankee Stadium, the last ever New York Mets home run at Shea Stadium, and an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Zack’s MLB.com blog is also one of the most widely read baseball blogs on the Internet – and while collecting baseballs, working on his next best-seller, and maintaining his Pro Blog on MLB.com kept him exceptionally busy this past year, Zack also took the time to write the foreword to our Sports by the Numbers title Major League Baseball: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports.

And he also put our Sports by the Numbers New York Yankees title on his reading list.

Here is what he said: "This Yankees-centric book is fair and balanced and therefore fun to read for a Mets fan like me – the authors had no qualms about providing interesting stats about Babe Ruth's propensity to be caught stealing bases or Dave Winfield's knack for grounding into double plays."

And yes, Zack is always clever and witty when he writes – you can click over to his blog from our Sports by the Numbers website.

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Random Numbers: Tiny Bonham -- NYY #902

902 The number of batters (902) Tiny Bonham faced in 1943. He was 15-8, and he made his second consecutive All-Star team. Bonham was remarkably consistent from 1942-43, as he made 28 starts and pitched 226 innings both seasons. He gave up 199 hits in 1942, and he gave up 197 hits in 1943. Bonham gave up 57 earned runs and posted an identical 2.27 ERA both seasons. He also struck out 71 batters and hit one batter in both seasons. The big difference for Bonham though was the way both seasons ended. The Yankees lost the 1942 World Series in five games to the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Yankees beat the Cardinals in five games during the 1943 World Series.

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Random Numbers: Boston Red Sox -- NYY #2

2 The most familiar position (2) in the standings for the Boston Red Sox. New York won 39 pennants and 26 World Series titles from 1920-2003, while Boston managed just four pennants and came up empty in the World Series each time. Best of all for New York, the rival Red Sox have finished second in the standings during a season the Yankees came in first a mind-boggling 15 times, including eight consecutive seasons from 1998-2005.

Random Numbers: Lou Gehrig -- NYY #731

731 The World Series slugging percentage (.731) for Lou Gehrig. He batted 119 times during seven trips to the World Series and picked up 21 extra-base hits. Gehrig batted .361 overall with ten homeruns, and he ranks among the top five leaders in post-season history for homeruns, triples, slugging percentage, total bases, walks, and RBI.