I thought this was a pretty weird story, but I didn't want to make a whole new thread for it. So, I'll post it under one of the less popular threads.
Ok...a few days ago I was thinking about writing up a few questionnaires to people. I didn't know who I wanted to write them to, so I randomly picked three out of Jack Smalling's Twelfth Edition. I was going to pick 3 folks. I pick one, he's dead. I pick another....he's dead. 0 for 2. One more...he's dead. Finally, another and.......he's also dead. What are the odds of the first four people I pick are dead? Finally I picked one, and it was Don Minnick.
Time to pick the second guy. I flip open the book to a random page....I randomly place my finger on a random name and (randomly of course), this guy is dead. How is it that out of over 10,000 names in a book where the majority of the guys are living, 4 out of the first 5 people I pick are dead? I flip to a new page and...hearing a drum roll in the background I put my finger on someone. Joy! He's still alive! He is Mike Fischlin.
Finally, the last guy to pick. Randomly opening the book again, I place my finger on a guy and...well...you can guess what I'll say next...
He's dead too. So, 5 of the 8 people I placed my finger on that day are dead. I guess I should stop randomly picking people...anywho, as I stop my rambling on about picking dead guys, this is who I placed my finger on...Fritz Fisher.
Now, I like to keep things in order, the first guy I pick, the first guy I write the questionnaire to. I had never heard of Minnick, so I thought 'hey, it would be cool to see what his career stats were'. I go online to see that this guy pitched only nine innings in his career. Needless to say (but I'm going to say it anyways), this was going to be a hard guy to write a questionnaire about. Luckily, I was able to get through it without sweating too much.
The next guy is Fischlin. I'd heard of him, but didn't know enough to write a well informed questionnaire about. So, I go online and see that he played a fairly long career with some cool stuff to write about. No sweat (well, maybe a little, because it gets kind of hot when the furnace is turned up to 72 degrees).
Finally, there is Fritz Fisher. I go online (specifically
www.baseballreference.com, if you want to know my exact source of information), to see the stats on Fisher. He was going to be harder to write about that Minnick. Not only did he play less than a season, he played (or pitched, for all of you who yearn to know what position he was), less than an
inning in his career. Oh boy. That made me sweat a little. But I did get it done. And I hope to see soon what he has to say about his career and such.
I think it's pretty cool to see these people and what they did in their careers, even if they lasted only one inning....
Oh yeah, and I think I'm mailing those out tomorrow.
EDIT: Wow. I wrote a lot. Hmmm....maybe I'll cut my stories down to 2 paragraphs next time. Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.