Here is a recent card show pickup. Not a super special card, but not bad either. It is from 2011 Gypsy Queen. It's not the front of the card that I want to talk about today though.
It's the back. Or more precisely, the text on the back:
I am both a numbers guy and a 'check your facts' guy, so pretty immediately, this sentence caught on my brain. For two reasons...
Issue 1. Those first few distances listed, 734, 656, 650 etc. Now the lengths of long home runs have always been tough to get real agreement on, but if you Google it, you don't see numbers in the 600s. Some that pop up include Joey Meyer - 587, Josh Gibson - 580, Babe Ruth - 578, and yes, Mantle at 565. But this says Mantle hit 6(!) longer than any of those! I went to themick.com as it is cited on the card as the source of this claim, and yes, that Mantle centric site does indeed claim these numbers, along with the stories of each of them. Some questionable math is cited to get that 734 number, and the others are only semi-supported.
Issue 2. Let's add up those numbers... 734 + 656 + 650 + 643 + 630 + 620 + 565 + 550 + 535 + 530 = 6113 feet. That IS a long way, but it is NOT 2.83 miles. 1 mile is 5280 feet. So these numbers add up to 1.16 miles, not 2.83.
What a weird card!! I wonder if I could get a fact checking job with Topps. Or maybe one of you awesome readers can fact check my fact checking? Did I get it wrong?
Well, in Tin Cup, Don Johnson hits a golf ball on a road and it keeps bouncing along for one heck of a drive.
ReplyDeleteInteresting card for sure. I wonder where they got 2.83 miles from, since that wasn't even close.
ReplyDeleteWhy would Topps be name dropping a player-centric site? Unless it's the official Mantle site, I would think they'd use something more baseball-related.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they were using that "new math".
ReplyDeleteThese days people just make up numbers and roll with it. It's like George Costanza says... "it's not a lie, if you believe it". :D
ReplyDeleteYeah, good catch on both the unreasonable distances and the total. Someone went rogue on this card.
ReplyDeleteSomeone can't add lol
ReplyDelete