They say you can pick your friends, and your nose, but not your friend’s nose. When discussing sports and individuals, we all pick and choose the stats that fit our narrative. We blatantly discard the numbers that don’t work for our arguments. If one does a deep dive on any player with a substantial back of a baseball card, we can find some interesting and unique facts.

After reading that Sudden Sam McDowell had recently passed, I eschewed looking at his famous 1968 stats. Every quality pitcher put up ridiculous numbers that season so it was more interesting to look at the broader picture and that’s the beauty of sites like Baseball Reference. Numbers literally pop such that you can’t ignore the great or ignominious. It wasn’t uncommon for teams to have multiple starting pitchers log 250+ innings multiple times in a career. It’s hard to believe in the current system when players brag about a 150 inning season.

Aside from the 2.18 ERA, Sam tossed 273 innings for the Indians. For the wonks infatuated with WAR, his was 8.2. He started 35 and completed 14 games (neither remarkable for the time). However, the number that caught my eye was Homers allowed:9. The math is pretty simple. 273/9 = 30+. He surrendered a home run every 30 innings.

If Kyle Hendricks, Steve Tracshel, John Lackey or heaven forbid, Shota Imanaga or Jameson Taillon ever labored through 273 innings in one season, they’d each give up 412 homers (all solo shots of course).

Years ago I had the good fortune to meet and converse with Sam about his addictions and brilliant career. He talked about the great players of his era and the challenges of the game. My only regret was not writing at the time and was unable to capture anything on the record. That being said, I only have pleasant memories of the encounter.

R.I.P Sudden Sam!