I Can't Stop Thinking About Guys Refusing to Take a Walk - Let's Try This Again - More Kellogg's Cards Please!

So, I should really look at the databases that track pitch counts, but the one I use only looks at season totals.  Sometimes I look at particular box scores to add to the story.  Remember, I'm only looking at statistics from 1969-1982 which would be the seasons that helped decide players for the next set.  Many of the players had careers before, after or both before and after these dates.

1.  Phil Niekro's 15 walks in 14 years equates to only 1350 feet.  That's 450 yards, only a long par-4.  Barry Bonds' season total worked out to 6960 yards, which is a challenging 18-hole course.

2.  Steve Carlton 32 walks in 14 years is only 960 yards.  That's about the distance I ran home from school for lunch in the days when we left the building from 12:00 - 1:00 for lunch if we wanted to do so.

3.  Gary Templeton total from the Kellogg's era comes out to just over 2 miles.  My friend and I would walk that far to White Hen Pantry when we heard that they had the first shipment of baseball cards each year.  We could rarely come up with $3.78 to buy an entire box, but I'd usually get 5-10 packs.

4.   Mario Guerrero didn't fare much better.  His 84 walks totaled about 1.4 miles.  I walked that far to the school bus every day in high school.

For individual seasons here are the bottom three walkers for players with at least 400 at-bats in a season from 1969 -1982.

1. Ken Reitz somehow got only nine walks in 426 offiical at-bats in 1973.  That's only 270 yards all season.  It was dry out today at the golf range and I hit a ball that might have rolled to 270 yards.  Did I mention that we always hit downhill?    

2.  Mickey Rivers had 266 walks in 15 years, just 34 more than Bonds had in a season.  That's 4.5 miles which sounds good, but that's about how far a caddy walks in one round of golf.  Your mileage may vary, especially if your golfer can't hit the ball straight.  My caddying experience for someone who appeared on a Kellogg's card is a story for another day.  

3. In 1980 Wayne Nordhagen received only 10 walks.  I walked further than that to just get to the first house on my paper route. No, not recently.  When I was 11.  I was still doing the route when this card came out of a cereal box.