It Is Time To Canonize A New Baseball Saint

A half-decade ago in the early days of this website, long before ABS or "The Big Dumper," I became obsessed with a very rare and unexciting way to play baseball. Frustrated by the prevalence of the long ball over small ball in MLB, I imagined a different world: one where players chose to sacrifice themselves for their team. I wished for a way to honor those selfless players who worried not about their own stats, but instead about the good of the club. To hit for the Saint Cycle (which I made up), a player must only sacrifice themselves in every plate appearance. They cannot be glorified with a hit, and in each trip to the plate, they must be saintly in a new way. Specifically, they must get four of these five outcomes: hit by pitch, walk, sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, and productive out. A productive out, in case you forgot, is when the batter gets out, but the other players on the bases move into scoring position. When I conducted my initial research in 2021, only three men had ever managed to hit for the saint cycle in all of baseball history: Tim Flannery, Jose Morales, and Biff Pocoroba. At the end of the 2021 season, I checked to see if there were any new saints. There weren't, and I promptly forgot about my obsession entirely.