Well, 5 trillion emails later, one thing we know now is that you readers out there definitely get the concept of the Useless Information Department. And we admire folks who can identify useless info when they see it.

	A healthy Adam Dunn would help the Reds' chances.

We could dole out many, many awards this week. But we're sticking to the standard top five, plus a few other vital tidbits. Here goes:

FIRST PRIZE:
Three very observant readers -- Daniel Shin, Andrew Zaroulis and Mike Weber -- were all swept away by one of the most inexplicable trends of the year. Not counting Tuesday's day-night doubleheader between the Yankees and Devil Rays (because day-nighters aren't considered "official" doubleheaders), every doubleheader played this season has been a sweep. That's an amazing 12 out of 12.

That defies every law of mathematics, probability and, we're pretty sure, the U.S. Constitution. So we asked the Elias Sports Bureau to look up the record for highest percentage of doubleheader sweeps in one year. And we're sure you'll all remember it -- because it happened in ...

1885, when there were 16 doubleheaders (but no day-nighters, due to an absence of light bulbs) and 13 sweeps. That's 81 percent. Last year's percentage: just 57 percent (8 of 14).

SECOND PRIZE:
Speaking of observant readers, Greg McBride reports that there's something amazing about the Cardinals' last five series, culminating with this weekend's meeting with the Royals. Those series have come against the Orioles, Red Sox, Yankees, Brewers and Royals.

So what do those five franchises have in common? Well, since the Orioles started out as the St. Louis Browns, it means the Cardinals have played five straight series against franchises they once met in the World Series.

We're 99.99999 percent sure that's a record. But if anyone out there can find a stretch that tops or equals it, check in with us at uselessinfodept@yahoo.com.

THIRD PRIZE:
The Tigers are a source of more useless information than any team on earth. And loyal reader Eric Orns hit one of their most amazingly useless feats of the year.

These Tigers aren't just last in the American League in runs scored. They're so far out of next-to-last, they couldn't see the team in front of them, the White Sox, without renting the Hubble Telescope.

Through Wednesday, the Tigers were 67 runs behind the White Sox after only 68 games. Which means at this rate, they would finish 160 runs behind the worst offense in the non-Michigan portion of the league.

Elias' Ken Hirdt reports that in the division-play era, that would be far and away the biggest margin ever -- by almost 50 runs. The previous record: 114 runs, by the 1969 expansion Padres (who scored 468 runs) and their fellow expansionites, the Expos (who scored 582).

So that sent us hurtling through the books ourselves. And here's what we determined:

Biggest gap since 1900 between the lowest-scoring team and the next-lowest: 142, between the 1922 Braves (596 runs) and Phillies (738).

Last team to get outscored by more than 142: the legendary 1899 Cleveland Spiders, whose 529 runs were 213 fewer than the New York Giants.

So as Eric Orns suggests, to say that the Tigers will finish "last" in runs scored doesn't do them justice. "There needs to be a new name for how last they are," Orns says, "like 'lastest,' 'beyond last' or 'last squared.' "

Got a suggestion? You know where to find us.

FOURTH PRIZE:
And the useless Tigers info just keeps on coming. Because reader Bill Ferris has noticed that there's one thing the Tigers never seem to do that all the other teams seem to do about twice a week -- score 10 runs in a game.

In fact, through Thursday, the Tigers had gone 132 consecutive games (since last July 23) without scoring in double figures. The Blue Jays have done it 18 times since then. The Rangers have done it 21 times. And the Tigers have done it zero times.

So that tells you it's tough to avoid scoring 10 at least once in a while. But this gets even more spectacular -- because that July 23 game (against Jeff Suppan and the Royals) stopped a streak of 110 straight games in single figures.

Now here's what this means: Since the latest rocketball-offense era began in 1993, only three times has a team gone 110 games or more without scoring 10 runs or more in a game. And the 2001-02-03 Tigers are responsible for two of them, essentially back-to-back. Here are those three streaks, courtesy of Elias:

110 -- Tigers Sept. 24, 2001 through July 21, 2002.
130 -- Tigers July 24, 2002 through June 19, 2003 (and counting).
166 -- Montreal Expos June 16, 1997 through June 18, 1998.

RELATED 10-RUN BONUS NOTE:
Just this season, while the Tigers were having no 10-run games, the Phillies have had two innings of 10 or more (10 last Sunday, 13 on April 13). But even more astounding, both of those innings came in the same ballpark -- and it isn't even the Phillies' home park. They both came in Cincinnati, a place the Phillies only got to visit twice because of an interleague-play-related schedule quirk.

So when, you ask, was the last time a team had two innings of 10 runs or more in the same road park in the same season? The answer, according to Elias:

It was in 1969, when the Astros did it twice in Shea Stadium -- on the same day. They scored 11 runs in the ninth inning of Game 1 of a doubleheader, then scored 10 in the third inning of Game 2. The second game was the infamous Mets game in which manager Gil Hodges walked all the way from the dugout to right field to yank Cleon Jones out of the game for not hustling.

Just thought you'd be interested. Now back to our regularly scheduled useless-reader-info programming.

FIFTH PRIZE:
In Cincinnati, Adam Dunn is having an amazing season in all kinds of ways. But as loyal reader Brendan Ferguson observes, one of them is this: Through Wednesday, he had more runs (46) than hits (45) -- and as many RBI (45) as hits. So naturally, Ferguson had to know if anyone has ever pulled this off over a full season.

And the answer, according to Lee Sinins' fabulous sabermetric baseball encyclopedia CD-rom, is: Nobody with this many hits has ever had as many runs as hits and as many RBI as hits in the same year.

Most hits by a player who had more runs than hits in a season: 75, by Bill Joyce, of the 1891 Cincinnati Red Stockings (76 runs, 75 hits, but only 51 RBI).

The More RBI Than Hits Club looks like this:

Player		Year	Hits	RBI
Mark McGwire	2001	56	64
Mark McGwire	2000	72	73
Paul Sorrento	1995	76	79
Mark McGwire	1995	87	90
Mark McGwire	1999	145	147

And the guys who came within 10 of doing both:

Player		Year	Hits	RBI	Runs
Mark McGwire	2001	56	64	48
Barry Bonds	1999	93	83	91
Jim King	1965	55	49	46
Dave Kingman	1973	62	55	54

Useless Reader Epilogs