Another license plate
Posted by Andy on April 10, 2011
I saw another stat-based license plate yesterday. This one was 9533 HR.
I started wondering how a number of almost 10,000 HR could be relevant. In any given season these days, there are 4,000-some homers, so that's not it.
But check this out. Among the 30 current franchises, the Yankees have the most HR, with 14,319. The Rays have the fewest, with 2,033.
The Minnesota Twins have 9,512 HR in franchise history. That means that in about 2 weeks, they'll probably get the 21 more they need to reach 9533 HR. Sweet.
April 10th, 2011 at 7:23 am
My first thought was someone who hit 33 homers in '95 but only two guys did that and neither would be bragging about 33 homers in a season. Bonds hit double that once and Edmonds topped the total a couple times in his career. It was his highest total of the 20th century though.
April 10th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Did anyone hit an important homer on September 5th, 1933?
April 10th, 2011 at 8:03 am
Took a picture of a license plate at the library today...
WHZON1ST
Now THAT'S a baseball license plate that needs no analysis!
April 10th, 2011 at 8:12 am
#2, good thought. Here's the list of players to homer that day:
Generated 4/10/2011.
April 10th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Maybe the driver owns one of the home run balls from Jimmie Fox or Lou Gerig hit that day.
April 10th, 2011 at 9:15 am
I like the original idea, but with a bit more analysis. I would have tried to see the State issuing the license plate, and the year of issuance.
If it's a team's lifetime total (or any total, for that matter), it is frozen in time. If it's an Illinois license, check my White Sox, or I guess even the (cough, hack) the cubs. Pennsylvania? Phillies or Pirates. In fact, the White Sox and Pirates are the first two teams just above 9,533. Eyeballing the Sox yearly stats, I don't see 9,533 after a full season.
I love baseball, and I love statistics. But I've never memorized stats from future years. I'm betting the truth lies in some team's total home runs through some recenly completed season.
Of course, if the total includes post-season, a whole different computation is involved, but that's not very likely.
What do you think?
April 10th, 2011 at 9:37 am
Maybe it was the ghost of Jimmie Foxx driving the car, similar to Charlie Sheen in The Wraith, driving around getting revenge against the descendants of those pitchers who struck him out.
Probably not. I just felt like mentioning Charlie Sheen because it doesn't seem he gets enough press.
April 10th, 2011 at 9:45 am
I think 9533 is also the number of home runs Bert Blyleven gave up in his career.
Of course, it could also be a minor league team total. Or heck, maybe even a league total. Maybe the person driving was a big fan of the Texas-Louisiana League or something.
Or maybe, and this is a long shot, I know....the plate was generated with no particular meaning from a DMV.
April 10th, 2011 at 10:10 am
One more thought. The HR isn't Home Run, but rather Hal Rhyne. The person driving the car is a huge Hal Rhyne fan and wanted to have Hal Rhyne's career fielding percentage to four decimals on his license plate. However, he used a different set of data than that of B-R and so his fourth decimal place is slightly off.
April 10th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Isn't HR is used for government bills? It goes in front of the number, though.
April 10th, 2011 at 10:25 am
I wanted to commemorate the Mets 2 World Series championships, but the DMV wouldn't allow me to have 69AND86
April 10th, 2011 at 11:36 am
There was a space between the digits and the letters, suggesting the HR should be considered separately? In my province, the characters are always consecutive, 9533HR, which could happen by chance as opposed to a custom-ordered vanity plate.
If so, then the Twins' team HR hypothesis seems the best, but then why the arbitrary number.....9533?
April 10th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
In two weeks the Twins will hit the 21 HR needed? With the 2 HR they have in 8 games so far, it will be late June before they reach that number.
April 10th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Glanzer, ha ha, they sure have had a rough offensive start to the year.
April 10th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
@3: If only the Mets put Chin-lung Hu at 1B in at least 1 game this season - Hu's on first - for real!
April 10th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
I thought of Ted Williams:
#9 533HR's.
But it turns out neither he or anyone else has a career total of 533.
April 10th, 2011 at 3:25 pm
I enjoy this theme, but I have no suggestions for the meaning of this particular plate.
On a tangent ... Yesterday I saw the New York plate "DSNY2UPS" -- any suggestions? I first thought of Disney, but can't find anything in that vein to fit the last half. DSNY could mean Dept. of Sanitation of New York; the agency does use that abbreviation in general, but I find no sign of it being a plate designation, and it didn't look like any sort of official car.
April 10th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Senate Vote #344 (Feb 17, 1917)
TO AGREE TO THE AMENDMENT AS AMENDED TO H.R. 9533, WHICH AMENDMENT PROVIDES THAT AT THE FIRST ELECTION PURSUANT TO THE ACT, THE ELECTORS SHALL BE THOSE HAVING THE QUALIFICA- TIONS UNDER THE PRESENT LAWS; THEREAFTER, VOTERS TO BE U.S. CITIZENS AND 21 YEARS OF AGE, QUALIFIED TO READ AND WRITE SPANISH OR ENGLISH OR THOSE WHO AT THE 1917 ELECTION WERE LEGAL VOTERS AND EXERCISED THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE. (P. 3468-2,3472-1)
April 10th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
I often look at the mileage on my old car and think of it as a baseball players OBP/SLG.
For example, right now my old rustbucket has 308280 kms on it, so it's a pretty crappy hitter, .308 OBP, and .280 SLG. That OBP is pretty crappy for all cars except the really, really high mileage cars, but the SLG frequently rises high of course. When I look down at 308475 or a number like that, I'll think of a player that matches those numbers closely. Joe Carter is pretty close tot hat off the top of my head.
Just a silly thing that runs throguh my head.
April 10th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
@18: Dubious and doubtful.
April 10th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Maybe it's just someone born on 9/5/33 whose initials are H.R. There's a reason they tend to be called "vanity" plates after all...
April 10th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
I wonder what state issued the license plate. In Massachusetts, we have a series of license plates of the form 9999XX, so 9533HR would simply be one of those.
April 11th, 2011 at 12:23 am
I recently say this New York plate on the car of a Yankee fan:
27NCNTNG
April 11th, 2011 at 12:31 am
A friend once saw this license plate (on a sports car, which may help you figure it out):
N NYY3 S
April 11th, 2011 at 1:53 am
@4
Interesting selection of players homering on Sep 5, 1933. A random date from almost 80 years ago, and 6 names pop up, and yet all are recognizable, and all but one easily so.
When I saw that there were two different double-headers involved in these games, I guessed the date would be a Sunday. Wrong. It was a Tuesday. These two double-headers were the only AL games that day, and there was only 1 NL game played. Without air travel, scheduling was apparently quite different from today.
April 11th, 2011 at 7:00 am
Wow, I misread the Twins' HR. I took their AL Rank in HR (12) as their actual HR total. So, yeah, it's gonna be more than a couple of weeks.
The various theories about which state this plate are from and how it was formatted are correct, and I'm sure this was NOT a vanity plate.
I see license plates all the time that make me think of baseball stats...since you folks seem to like thinking about it too, I'll keep posting them when I see them.
April 21st, 2011 at 6:01 am
If you need to have your plates registered then you might want to use a site which will be able to accomplish this for you. Not only will you be able to have the plates registered quickly, but you will also be able to browse through a range of available plates.
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DONALD
Car Registrations