*Weblog - Spilt Milk* 	*By: Tom Ensey*

*Friday, June 4th*

I got an interesting e-mail from Duke University the other day. It confirmed my 
suspicions that baseball managers and pitchers would rather give up runs - they
would rather lose - than have a jerk like Barry Bonds break the all-time, home-run record.

Jerry Reiter is an assistant professor at Duke's Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences, 
and he has deduced that while it?s risky to pitch to Bonds, it?s an even worse idea
to walk him.

Jerry has analyzed hundreds of situations over the past three years and
here's how his math shakes out:

- When Bonds walks with the bases loaded and no outs - which happened 80
times in the past three years, the Giants score at least one run 46
percent of the time and average about 0.9 runs per inning.

- In the 300 times Bonds got a hit, the Giants scored just 36 percent of
the time and averaged only 0.6 runs per inning.

- The only possible situation where you should walk Bonds is with one
out and nobody on. Only then does his home-run power outweigh the risk
of putting him on first base.

Jerry and I exchanged e-mails that was an interesting discourse. He?s a most brainy math guy. 
I am not. I was able to communicate my questions to him in the way that a dog is
able to get a human to open the door - through simple gestures and pleading looks.

Jerry assured me the results weren't skewed by one or two monster
innings - that's an example of what the numbers gang calls "chance
error." There's no chance error in his findings. He also took into
account the quality of opposing pitchers and the quality of the hitter
batting behind Bonds and lots of other hard things.

It's down, he said. The results are in; we have the facts. Word up. Do
not walk Barry Bonds.

Which may beg the real issue.

I hate Barry Bonds. He's history's finest power hitter, but he's an
eternally flowing fountain of obnoxiousness, an arrogant, solipsistic narcissist.

Maybe managers and pitchers hate Bonds, too. Maybe they hate him so
much, they'd rather lose than let him jack one - or jack enough to
overtake Hank Aaron, a good guy.

Maybe Bonds walks so much because it'd be too obvious if you beaned him
every time he came up.