Dusty Baker played coached or managed in 3% of all games ever?

[jose melendez]

I saw this on Facebook, and it seemed impossible, but it appears to nearly work out.

If you play in 162 over a season you're playing in 6.67% of the games that year.

I'm having a hard time finding the total number of games ever played, but it seems like it's 238,277 according to baseball reference, so I'll assume that's at least close.

Dusty played in 2039 games and managed in 4046 games. That's 2 1/2% of all games ever played.

He spent one year with the Giants as first base coach and four as a hitting coach. I can't find specific numbers, but assuming he was there all year, that's another 810 games.

All together that's 6895 games, which is 2.89% of all games ever played. Not quite 3%, but I can't believe it's that close.

 

[luckiestman]

Great Stat. What a great stat.

 

[Tokyo Sox]

I assume it's from Ryan Spaeder originally, I think he's at aceofspaeder on xitter. He's had a bunch of these types of stats over the years, always mind blowing, always correct, but that never stopped people from arguing with him about them. He was a great follow for a while until his buddy-buddiness with Schilling and his own politics made it too puketastic for me to continue.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Wasn’t there some stat about how some pitcher (Jamie Moyer, maybe?) had pitched to like 9% of all batters who every played, or something?

 

[Humphrey]

Sounds about right. His playing years and early managing years, there were less total games as MLB morphed from 24 to 26 to 28 to 30 teams. That would mean Baker was involved in many years more than the 6.66% number.

Assuming the person who made the claim only went back to 1903, that's 120 years and he was involved in nearly 50 of them.

 

[Huntington Avenue Grounds]

Quite the stat. 1st name that came to mind for me was Connie Mack and what his numbers looks like. 7755 games as manager or player/manager puts him at 3.25%, impressive for a guy who last submitted a lineup when Richard Nixon was making a name hunting commies in the early days of McCarthyism. Have to think that with fewer teams and games played that must have been up near 10% when he retired.

 

[AB in DC]

That sounded crazy to me at first, until I remember that through 1960, we're only talking 16 teams playing 154 rather than the 30 teams playing 162 today. So yeah, a lot more games in recent years than before.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Carl Yastrzemski has played in 18% of all Red Sox games ever played.

 

[Euclis20]

Wrong sport, but Brady winning more super bowls than any individual franchise (and playing in about 1 out of every 5 super bowls) is insane.

 

[AlNipper49]

97% of baseball games ever played Darren Lewis was rightly considered the piece of shit that he actually is.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

I wonder what percentage of all baseball games Vin Scully announced.
1950 to 2016 with the Dodgers, plus many postseason games.

 

[Brand Name]

I can do the math on this...just making a post so for the record. Have some good sources and skills that lend well to this,

I'm going to use the following leagues: AL, NL, FL, UA, AA, various Negro Leagues, PL. Those are the ones MLB deems as official and since 1876 specifically. I say this because the National Association (sadly) doesn't count from 1871-1875, per MLB officially, and a stat like this would tend to lean that way.

 

[Brand Name]

Baker managed 4,046 regular season games, with 108 postseason games, or 4,154 total. Baker played in 2,039 regular season games, and 40 postseason games, or 2,079 as a player. As a net, that's 6,233.

Among 161 teams deemed major league by MLB proper, they've played 476,554 regular season games. In the postseason, that number is 3,928, by a combined by 47 teams. Yes, this includes the first two games of this autumn's World Series. So add those up, and you get 480,482 games MLB qualifies as major leagues. That we know of at least, since many Negro League games are still unknown to us.

6,233/480,482...is more like 1.3%. Is Ryan maybe talking about modern era only? That's where I first heard this. Not very like him but it makes it a bit more reasonable of a thought. That or not including Negro League because of unknown quantities? Which is fine because of that uncertainty but it's an important qualifier personally.

 

[TenCentBeerNight]

Baker managed 4,046 regular season games, with 108 postseason games, or 4,154 total. Baker played in 2,039 regular season games, and 40 postseason games, or 2,079 as a player. As a net, that's 6,233.

Among 161 teams deemed major league by MLB proper, they've played 476,554 regular season games. In the postseason, that number is 3,928, by a combined by 47 teams. Yes, this includes the first two games of this autumn's World Series. So add those up, and you get 480,482 games MLB qualifies as major leagues. That we know of at least, since many Negro League games are still unknown to us.

6,233/480,482...is more like 1.3%. Is Ryan maybe talking about modern era only? That's where I first heard this. Not very like him but it makes it a bit more reasonable of a thought. That or not including Negro League because of unknown quantities? Which is fine because of that uncertainty but it's an important qualifier personally.

Your total games number is very nearly twice that of @josemelendez in the OP. So either baseball reference is missing a huge number of games, or you are double counting by adding total games played across all teams.

 

[Max Power]

It was probably just MLB games from the start of the AL. His games as a coach were also included.

Who has been involved in the most MLB games in history? I guess it has to be Connie Mack. Even with shorter schedules back before expansion, it's tough to beat the guy who was on the bench until he was 87.

 

[Brand Name]

Your total games number is very nearly twice that of @josemelendez in the OP. So either baseball reference is missing a huge number of games, or you are double counting by adding total games played across all teams.

So this is probably it, yeah? Thank you.

Philosophical difference of a game: Team game vs. games competitive winner. Team games will be nearly double wins (ties will make it not exactly double). Provided that's the case, and I'm 100% inclined to believe you're right 2.6% is much more in the ballpark.

I did not include his days/games as a coach in a non-head managerial role either.

 

[Zedia]

nm, I see Connie Mack has been mentioned above.

 

[Hoya81]

It was probably just MLB games from the start of the AL. His games as a coach were also included.

Who has been involved in the most MLB games in history? I guess it has to be Connie Mack. Even with shorter schedules back before expansion, it's tough to beat the guy who was on the bench until he was 87.

If announcers count, Scully and Jamie Jarrín (Dodgers Spanish play by play) both announced somewhere around 10,000 games. Scully had more total years, but gradually reduced traveling with the team in the last 10-15 years so it’s probably a wash between them.

 

[jose melendez]

I assume it's from Ryan Spaeder originally, I think he's at aceofspaeder on xitter. He's had a bunch of these types of stats over the years, always mind blowing, always correct, but that never stopped people from arguing with him about them. He was a great follow for a while until his buddy-buddiness with Schilling and his own politics made it too puketastic for me to continue.

Just checked and it is from Ryan Spaeder originally, rebroadcast by sportskeeda baseball.

 

[jose melendez]

So this is probably it, yeah? Thank you.

Philosophical difference of a game: Team game vs. games competitive winner. Team games will be nearly double wins (ties will make it not exactly double). Provided that's the case, and I'm 100% inclined to believe you're right 2.6% is much more in the ballpark.

I did not include his days/games as a coach in a non-head managerial role either.

I think it's AL and NL games, that's my best guess. The stat definitely included his 5 years as a coach.