Last summer, in a feature story that I penned for Cape Cod newspapers that somehow made its way to the Patriot Ledger and other mainland publications, I addressed how infrequently the “blue moon” phenomenon occurs.
“Once in a blue moon,” I wrote, is something that “you might have said … when referring to how often David Ortiz steals a base,” among other infrequent happenings.
Yesterday, the latter event happened, when Big Papi swiped his first bag since 2013.
The last blue moon occurred in July 2015, and, before that, 2012. The next one, according to Earth & Sky, will be next month.
“A full moon,” I wrote last year, “usually only takes place once every 28 days, which is one lunar phase cycle. That means that there will be 41 months that have two full moons in every century. Break down the numbers even further, and it shows that ‘once in a blue moon’ actually means an average of once every two-and-a-half years.”
So, the next time that you spot that “blue moon” rising over the ocean, just remember this: stranger things can happen.