First & Last PAs, Illustrated by Craig Robinson
The well-seasoned NotGraphs aesthete is no doubt aware of Craig Robinson’s site flipflopflyball.com. Mr. Robinson is known (and should be even more well-known) for his insightful and beautiful infographics about our beloved game, amongst other things.
Some time ago, I was looking at the “First and Last” section of the site, which visually represents several players’ initial and final plate appearance in the Major Leagues; I was taken with how perfectly some of them seemed to encapsulate the careers of the players involved. Below are a few of my favorites, with brief commentary:
Darryl was great player, when he played. But this is just too telling of his troubled career and life.
Clemente. Man.
Arrived modestly; left respected.
Rickey gained a different kind of “respect” over his long career.
What’s missing is the plate appearance exactly in the middle, which probably is a homerun, knowing Ted. (I actually just checked: the PA just before the PA exactly in the middle of all of Williams’s PAs was a HR. The one exactly in the middle was a strikeout. Baseball-Reference is amazing.)
Derp, derp, derp.
Cool.
Great post, RJB.
cool
wonderful.
wasn’t Clemente actually a highly-touted prospect though?
Craig should add a Moonlight Graham, as Graham is kind of famous now.
my first and last ab’s were touchdowns.
Matt Weiter’s first and last at bat were grandslam homeruns. So was every at bat in between.