Posted By:
Dave ReyWell, Ted, you're wrong.
It isn't that hard mathematically to figure the current probability, given 100 years of historical outcome data.
Just because you don't like the beauty and mystery of baseball being wrung down into cold, static numbers doesn't mean it isn't possible to examine the game in that manner.
And just because the math says the likelihood of an event like a WS perfect game happening again in the next couple milleniums is slim (as long as the game isn't radically changed), doesn't mean it won't happen in game 1 of this year's WS. It just means it is incredibly unlikely.
I find it fascinating that many baseball fans will blithely go along and accept statistics as being a interwoven part of the fabric of baseball, but when you actually try to make sense of the statistics and look at them with intelligent analysis, it disconnects something in their brains.
Heck, you asked for a representation of how amazing the Larsen WS perfect game was and I gave it to you in the most basic possible terms.
I guess I should've just said, "It probably won't happen again in our lifetimes," and left it at that.
To put it even more forceful, it is probably the rarest occurance that baseball will ever know.
And, hey, I like the beauty and mystery of baseball as much or more as anybody here -- I just realize that the enjoyment of the game can be expanded by expanding my understanding of the cold, hard side of it, as well.