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A close-fought battle on the final day, with shanmanhall's most-favored suggestion "12 hordes of Dodgers weeping"" playing nicely off the "Lords a-leaping" of the original, and being locked up with piratedan's "12 total bases" through the end of popular voting at 4pm. Wielding the powers vested in me by SB Nation, my casting vote goes to piratedan, purely because I have a terrible allergy to writing about the Los Angeles Dodgers. Seriously, I break out in a rash, start wheezing and the effects can only be countered by staring at Paul Goldschmidt's page on Baseball-Reference.com. We are thus going with:
12 total bases
Which also lends itself nicely to a look at that. As piratedan7 pointed out, that's a pretty good day's output. Indeed, the Diamondbacks have only had one of those over the past three seasons combined. It was "pretty good", coming in the 18-7 win over Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers: Paul Goldschmidt had two home-runs and two doubles for his 12 bases, driving in six runs and scoring four. He became the 16th player with a game of 12+ bases, though Goldie's day was only worth +10.0% in Win Probability. There's been just one lower WP among those 16; When Greg Colbrunn cycled in 2002, with an extra homer, for 14 bases, that was just +9.5% WP.
On the other hand, the most important contribution was Danny Bautista's on April 22, 2004 - he had two homers, a double and two singles as we edged the Brewers 11-9, the victory taking 15 innings even though we piled up a dozen more hits than Milwaukee (20-8). Of course, it's easier to rack up the bases when you come to the plate eight times, as Bautista did there. Two Diamondback players have reached the mark in games where they had only four PAs: Steve Finley in April 2004, and Stephen Drew in August 2010.
As you'd expect, the 12-base game has gone into decline as the number of home-runs has also decreased. Last year, there were 14 such cases, just half the tally in 2001. Three years later, 2004, was the last time the number of 12-base games got out of the teens. It's something many great players go through their entire careers without achieving, but three players managed it on seven occasions: Lou Gehrig, Johnny Mize and Sammy Sosa. I feel one of those names deserves a large asterisk beside it...
Perhaps the most remarkable 12-base game of all time belongs to Art Shamsky of the Cincinnati Reds, who in 1966 became one of three players in history to achieve the mark in just three plate-appearances - Bo Jackson was the last, for the 1990 Royals. Jackson homered the first three times up in that game, driving in seven runs, but then partially dislocated his shoulder diving for a ball off the bat of fellow two-sport star, Deion Sanders. Sanders ended up with an inside-the-park home-run; the pitcher at the time was future Diamondbacks' bullpen coach, Mel Stottlemyre.
What's particularly impressive about Shamsky's feat is, he is the only player ever to get there off the bench, setting the all-time record for total bases by a substitute, after entering as part of a double switch in the top of the eighth inning. He came to the plate in the bottom half with the Reds down by one, and hit a two-run homer, though their bullpen couldn't hold the lead in the ninth and the Pirates tied it up. The visitors then took the lead in the 10th on a Willie Stargell homer, but Shamsky tied things up again with another homer in his second AB. Pittsburgh scored two in the 11th... and Shamsky got his third homer, another two-run shot, in the bottom half.
But, it all proved useless, as the Pirates scored three more in the 13th, and Shamsky didn't get back to the plate again, the Reds going down by a final score of 14-11. Art ended the game - which, I remind you, he didn't enter until the 8th inning - with a Win Probability of +150.3%, for the losing side. No other player in baseball history has reached even +140%, and the highest WP posted since Shamsky's monumental bench performance by any starter, was only +125.3%, by Brian Daubach for the Red Sox in August 2000.
And so, we finish. Thanks to all those who suggested lines, whether chosen or not. I enjoyed writing them up - well, most of them, anyway! - and hopefully, we'll be able to take delivery of some of the gifts in question, during the 2016 season.