Another Record, But Still Another Win

Last night flying back to Baltimore on a connecting flight from Des Moines through Chicago, we flew past Camden Yards on our final approach. It was around 9:30 so dark, and the stadium lights were bright in the distance - easy to pick out the park - the Orioles were obviously in town playing. My wife mentioned last weekend that it would be fun to go to a game. I was thinking about that as I looked out the window, and also how I am more interested in how the up-the-road team - the Phillies - are doing because of Jamie Moyer (see the earlier preseason and complete game shutout posts). I quickly Googled Phillies Moyer on my Web browser this morning and came up with the following article - another record set and another win.

Phillies' Moyer Sets Record For Most Home Runs Allowed
Sun Jun 27, 2010 7:30pm EDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer gave up a Major League record 506th home run in an otherwise outstanding performance on Sunday.

Toronto's Vernon Wells hit the record-breaking run to left field in the third inning as the 47-year-old Moyer passed the mark held by Phillies Hall of Famer Robin Roberts.

Moyer (9-6) also became the 40th Major Leaguer to pitch 4,000 career innings when he threw seven innings in the 11-2 victory.

The left-hander, who first played in the Major Leagues in 1986, has a 267-201 career record.

(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina. Editing by Ian Ransom)
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I taught statistics for seven years when I was a university professor in California - before taking a full-time research position at a Federal laboratory in Oregon. In typical fashion for me, as I was reading about Jamie Moyer's new record - not a flattering one - I began thinking about how if a pitcher stands among the elite pitchers who pitch the most career innings, that pitcher is bound to accumulate the most of other pitching statistics as well - cause and effect, more innings - more opportunities for greatness or infamy. As I thought about that, I put it into a statistical perspective. In this case, I remembered a principle called collinearity - concurrent associations among two or more variables that are used to predict an outcome using multiple regression analysis.

I have a book about collinearity that I bought when I was a graduate student. It looked interesting at the time, and was also an interesting read. I used the theory in some of the research papers I wrote so the interpretations were more accurate. Applied to baseball, if you pitch enough innings, you are bound to accumulate more home runs given up - collinearity. The important point with Jamie Moyer is he keeps on going, and going, and pitching....and winning - kind of like the Eveready Energizer bunny. Pretty good for a relatively old man in young man's sport.

I know I am an old man, because when I looked on Amazon for an image of the book cover, I glanced at it's price - I know I didn't pay $100 for the book 30 years ago, back when I was in graduate school - another young man's game.