Researchers: guys with short, wide faces hit more homers

Sounds like phrenology to me, but what do I know. I have a bachelor of arts degree:

Tucked into the latest edition of Biology Letters, among articles on emperor penguin surface temperatures and predator-prey size relationship, is a study that suggests that the shape of your face may indicate whether you’d make a good power hitter.

University of London researchers Hikaru Tsujimura and Michael J. Banissy tracked nearly 200 Japanese players in one of that country’s two pro baseball leagues over the course of two seasons and found that players with short, wide faces tended to have higher-than-average home run numbers.

There’s even a sabr-sounding stat for it: fWHR, or acial width-to-height ratio. Which, even though it was created and researched by university psychologists, will likely cause a bunch of old school baseball columnists to use it to mock statheads. Tell me you’d be surprised if you read this one morning:

Some stat-obsessed researchers in Japan (who knew they had research labs in mothers’ basements?) have determined that guys with short, wide faces hit a lot of homers. Hope no one tells them about [Player with long, skinny face who hit a big home run the night before], because it’d be a shame if all of their research went to waste.

Actually, I doubt if we have to wait until some skinny guy hits a homer. I bet someone uses this stuff as a launchpad for an anti-science, anti-stats rant. Because, hey, it’s just the sports pages.

Anyway, this kind of thing is fun, even if it has even a remotely identifiable practical application.