Lunacy

Back before 790 AM became the Marlins home, and even before it was a sports station, a show would come on there every now and then called the Moonscope show, hosted by a guy who, in-between playing some funky tracks of music, would attempt to link up the past week's happenings, and happenings throughout world history, to the differing phases of the moon and the effects each phase supposedly has on us. It was one of those concepts that's easy to say "Aw, come on!", but still stays in the back of the mind anyway. After all, the moon affects ocean tides, and humans are practically made of seawater too - why can't the moon mess with us?

So, just to see what would appear, I had the Cracked Stat Dept. chart the win-loss records of the Marlins for the past five seasons based on the phases of the moon. The Marlins win-loss charts are from Baseball-Reference.com and the moon phase info is from Old Farmers' Almanacs. Just for the hell of it, they counted the day before and the day after each moon phase as a part of that phase, so each phase has a three-day window for games to be played. They also charted the win-loss records for the games between each of the phases - they're in the columns with the arrows pointing to the phases they're between.

     
      ,_______._______._______._______._______._______._______._______.
      ||  new  |       | first |       |  full |       |  last |       |
year  ||  moon | <---> |  qtr  | <---> |  moon | <---> |  qtr  | <---> |
------||-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
2004  ||  9- 9 | 15-11 |  8-10 | 10-13 |  9- 8 | 12-11 | 10- 4 | 10-13 |
2005  ||  9- 9 | 14-13 |  8- 9 | 12- 9 |  9- 7 | 10- 9 |  8- 9 | 13-14 |
2006  ||  8- 7 | 14-14 |  9-11 |  8-16 |  9- 5 | 11-13 |  7- 6 | 12-12 |
2007  ||  7-10 | 13-13 |  8- 9 |  6-19 | 10- 8 | 14-14 |  8- 8 |  5-10 |
2008  || 10- 8 | 14- 8 |  8- 9 | 13-12 |  9- 6 | 13-11 |  7-10 | 10-13 |
------||-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
total || 43-43 | 70-59 | 41-48 | 49-69 | 46-34 | 60-58 | 40-37 | 50-62 |
------||-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
win-% || 50.0% | 54.3% | 46.1% | 41.5% | 57.5% | 50.8% | 51.9% | 44.6% |
------''-------'-------'-------'-------'-------'-------'-------'-------'

Looks like the Marlins have definitely been a full-moon team, with a winning record during the full moon in each of the last 5 years, even in the off-years. Next best for wins has been the phase between the new moon and first quarter. And see how two out of their three worst showings, moon-phase-wise, took place between the first quarter and full moon, even as they recovered during the time of the full moon.

Statistically insignificant though it may be, we may be on the verge of something. Or maybe not. As Mr. Moonscope always used to say on the radio, and even on his website, these speculations are "for entertainment purposes only."