Tribe fan Greg Van Niel caught four foul balls yesterday in the Indians 6-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals. The insane odds of that happening — see tweet below — are compounded by the fact that he did it all before the fifth inning. Van Niel’s displaying only three balls above because he tossed the fourth to nearby fans.
Via the PD, Van Niel is a season ticket holder but had never caught a ball at a game before. He exchanged tickets prior to the game to sit in section 160 where the magic happened.
Here’s Van Niel describing his heroics on the Tribe blog Tribevibe:
“Michael Bourn hit one that was off the facade [of the suites overhead], and that’s where I was in the cheese fries. . . . [That] one was crazy acrobatics. I was strewn across three rows, and I needed some assistance getting back. The others were just being in the right place at the right time.”
ESPN’s Darren Rovell chimed in with the likelihood of Van Niel’s feat happening again:
Odds of catching 4 foul balls in the game today, as an Indians fan did, are roughly 1 in 1 trillion according to pic.twitter.com/VxN9jcZS3G
— darren rovell (@darrenrovell) July 15, 2013
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2013.
This is absolutely awesome, and he’s making national news for doing that. Although, if it were me, I’d rather hit on trillion to one odds on the lottery, or a horse race or something.
Yeah, that’s some really bad statistical analysis. The probability of catching a foul ball has way more to do with where one sits than how many attend. If one sits in the bleachers the probability is 0 because one isn’t in foul territory. If one sits in the upper deck it’s going to be relatively small, if nonzero. Someone down the line near first or third base where most foul balls are hit, however, has a much greater chance. A better analysis would be based on factors such as the number of balls hit within catchable range of that particular spot in the history of the Jake, the probability of any given person catching one of those balls (rather than others around him–the only factor that does possibly have to do with attendance–and accounting for factors such as his/her athleticism compared to the 70-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old little leaguer also seated nearby), and the likelihood of those conditions being replicated four times in one game. Glad this guy’s a sportscaster and not in charge of anything, you know, important. Regardless, that’s some impressive luck.