Friday, June 18, 2010

143.667 Hours

That’s about the major league career time of Billy Wagner.  I’m watching the Braves play the Royals, it’s the ninth inning and Billy Wagner is closing as the Braves are only two runs ahead.


The announcer just said that Wagner had something just over 1100 strikeouts in 862 innings of pitching in his career.  Allowing an average of ten minutes per inning, Wagner has pitched (breaking news, we just won, Wagner’s part taking about five minutes) just a touch over the number of hours in the title.

I’m not going to figure out his hourly rate.

2 comments:

Big Mark 243 said...

I am sure it is obscene, but I wonder how valued is the lifetime committment to the pursuit to be a prorfessional athelete. Jus' sayin'...

Dave said...

I'm not begrudging him the money. He spent a lot of time getting to and staying at the level that pays him so much; though, if you figure the average person works what, at a low end, 1500 hours a year, Wagner is just below 40 years old. The bad part of what he makes is the result of what it costs to go to a game. To sit behind home plate, where you can call his balls and strikes is between $75 and $200 per seat.