Dividing by plate appearances gives you only a slightly different list. Bonds (.919 bases per PA) and Sosa (.769) still stand one-two. Helton jumps to third (.735), with Gonzalez fourth (.735) and Larry Walker taking the fifth spot at .730.

The top four here remain the same when you divide by plate appearances -- Ordonez (.382), Ripken (.388), Barrett (.399) and Santiago (.400). The only change is that Omar Vizquel sneaks into the fifth-worst position, with a rate of .404.

The worst rate of outs to plate appearances? Ripken earns that dubious honor at .758 -- that is, more than three outs for every four trips to the plate. Santiago (.753) came in second, followed by Kevin Young (.746), Barrett (.743) and Ordonez (.743).

It should be no surprise that after adjusting for plate appearances, Bonds tops this list. He was the only player in the Majors who averaged under .500 outs per PA, coming in at .497. Giambi was second (.548), Sosa third (.5738), Walker fourth (.5740) and Gonzo fifth (.592).

To create the Diamond Digits All-Star team, I started to take the strict ratio of bases per out. I was surprised to see Walker take one of the outfield spots. It's not that Walker didn't have a great season -- he did, yet again -- but he missed 20 games. It seemed that an adjustment for plate appearances was in order.

The simplest way to do that is to take the base/out ratio and multiply it by plate appearances, thus rewarding players who played more often. There's only one problem with that -- some players hurt their team more and more with every trip to the batter's box. So one more adjustment was called for.

The Major League average for bases per out in 2001 was .703 -- that includes everyone, even pitchers. So I subtracted .703 from the base/out ratio -- a positive number means you were better than average, a negative number means you were worse than average. And every extra plate appearance with a worse-than-average ratio lowers your rating.

(one note: this method is based partially on "HACKING MASS," an entertaining little game presented by the good folks at Baseball Prospectus)

So in the end you get a scale with Bonds at 761 at the top, and Ripken at -99 at the bottom. For the record, Ripken had the worst on-base percentage of anyone who qualified for the batting title this year, so superstar status aside, he's a fitting No. 148.

Here are the All-Stars:

Pos  Player          Score   Rank
C    Mike Piazza      143     32
1B   Jason Giambi     416      3
2B   Roberto Alomar   217     19
3B   Chipper Jones    274     10
SS   Alex Rodriguez   284      9
OF   Barry Bonds      761      1
OF   Sammy Sosa       453      2
OF   Luis Gonzalez    390      4
DH   Manny Ramirez    236     12

Tough trivia

The last round of questions stumped you all... Yeah!

Question 1: Five thousand nine hundred twenty-nine is the number of times Pete Rose reached base by hit, walk or hit by pitch -- more than anyone else.

Question 2: One hundred thirty-eight was the career home run record for more than 20 years -- Roger Connor retired with that many after the 1897 season, and the mark stood until Babe Ruth broke it in 1921. By 1924, Ruth had doubled the previous record. Of course, he retired having increased it by more than 400 percent!

Question 3: Those are the career stats of Mike Hargrove, now a manager but once a no-power on-base machine at first base.

Here are this week's questions. Have fun. E-mail the answers to me if you think you know 'em.

Question 1: Mark Whiten, Scott Sheldon and Kevin Seitzer are three of just eight players in history who have this amazing career stat.

Question 2: What pitcher holds the record for most career starts without pitching a shutout?

Question 3: What player's career stats read as follows?

   G    AB     R     H   2B  3B   HR   RBI   BB   SO   SB   CS   OBP   SLG   AVG
2293  8288  1231  2365  412  55  185  1003  850  874  236  109  .352  .415  .285