Houston Small Ball and Tampa Bay Lefties
What do the members of the Houston Rockets starting lineup on January 31, 2020 have in common with all members of
the 2020 Houston Astros baseball team?
None of them were taller than 6'6". This anomaly was a consequence of their 6'10'' starting center Clint Capela being injured. It was the first
time since 1963 that no member of an NBA starting lineup was taller than 6'6''.
Interestingly, the Rockets had two 7-footers in their starting lineup in the mid-1980s (Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson). The Celtics team they
played in the 1986 NBA Finals had three players in their starting lineup that were at least 6'9'' (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish) and the
Lakers team they upset to get to that NBA Finals had four players that were at least 6'8'' (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and
Kurt Rambis). How times have changed.
Later that calendar year, the Tampa Bay Rays made some history of their own by having nine pure left-handed hitters in their starting batting order.
That's the first time that happened in MLB history. (Seven out of the nine hitters
throw right-handed.) Approximately
10% of people bat left-handed; that small percentage
includes the best player on the '19-'20 Houston Rockets (James Harden).
So, the probability that nine people selected at random from the population bat left-handed is (0.1)^9 = 0.000000001 or 1 in a billion. Of course, that's
much smaller than the probability that nine people selected at random from the population are all no taller than 6'6''.