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THE BASEBALL HISTORY COMES ALIVE BLOG
Please note: As we compose new blog entries, we will now send each one out to all our subscribers as we post them. Here’s a link to see the entire Blog Archives -GL
May 5, 2021
Mark Kolier submits his first blog post today with some interesting observations about the state of the current game. Some of his opinions are sure to stir up emotions, especially what he says about the DH. But that’s the purpose of the blog page: a chance for us all to opine about our great game. In the featured photo above, we see the very first DH, Ron Blomberg from 1973. -GL
New Blog Topic: Baseball – Can It Improve From Here?
Ah, America’s Pastime. It would be a mistake for today’s under-35 baseball fans to believe that baseball before 1973 (the first year of the Designated Hitter,) was baseball in the stone age. That attitude does exist when comparing the stars of yesteryear to those of the present day. Before let’s say 1980, most players had a fair amount of ‘seasoning’ before reaching the major leagues. This practice was expected to deliver more experienced players who had learned the tricks of the trade. Hitting and bunting, baserunning, fielding, and throwing.
Veteran baseball fans complain that money ‘changed that game’ and that owners, players and agents are all greedy and only concerned with their own paths. They also complain that players don’t know HOW to play the game anymore in part because players are brought up to the major league level at too tender an age to really understand the nuances of major league baseball. What you can get by with at the minor league level does not guarantee success in the major leagues. Young phenoms like Juan Soto (wise and talented beyond his years) of the Washington Nationals are the exception.
Baseball has always been a very strategic game. Professional baseball players have always been required to work hard on their craft with the chances slight for any real success by one individual player. Minor league teams have two or three good prospects, and 20 other guys for them to play with that aren’t as good. To not appreciate the physical, competitive, and tactical attributes of players from earlier eras is to not understand baseball in the context of its place in American and World history.
It’s also wrong for older baseball fans to disparage today’s players as being ego-inflated prima donnas who would not have flourished as much in the hardscrabble days of baseball (or let’s say 1979 pre-ESPN). Today’s Major Leaguer is better conditioned, better prepared, better informed, and of course better paid than his professional forbears. It’s a shame we cannot watch players like Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax play in today’s Major Leagues. Would they be successful? One thing is for sure, they’d take advantage of all the latest training methods and analytical tools that were not available to them during their playing days. It’s difficult to imagine the all-time greats not being, well, all-time great in any era!
Acknowledging that the game of baseball is played very differently than it was before 1973 would seem strange to the less observant. The basics are all the same for the most part. The DH was one response to the 1968 ‘Year of the Pitcher’. Baseball needed more hitting, and lowering the mound from 15 to 10 inches was not enough. Pitchers could not hit much then (and it’s even worse now), and the
Ron Blomberg says the DH for the NL is inevitable.
pitchers were not penalized salary-wise for NOT hitting. This created another job, the DH. It was a polarizing experiment that has lasted 48 years. It will likely continue for BOTH leagues once a new collective bargaining agreement is reached between the MLBPA and MLB. When the DH debuted, National League fans held their noses when talking about the superiority of their league’s classic style of play. This still happens today but baseball is not worse for the DH, it’s better. The DH was a worthwhile adaptation to the downward trend of a pitcher’s ability to bat. Because it’s so difficult to hit a baseball!
So, the question remains, can baseball improve from here? Or because sports fans have dwindling patience and a never-ending stream of distractions (pastimes!), is baseball doomed to second-tier sports status? Before you jump at that statement keep in mind that this is exactly what many longtime baseball fans are feeling and saying. Too many strikeouts, too many home runs as a percentage of batted balls in play, and too many pitching changes! Major-league baseball in its wisdom is acknowledging the problem by having instituted some new rules in 2020 at the MLB level and is currently testing others at the minor league level. Some of these experimental rules sound downright nutty such as having a home run derby in lieu of extra-innings. Another league is testing a ‘double’ hook rule in which if the starting pitcher is removed, it forces the removal of the designated hitter. And don’t forget the test where the mound is being moved back 1 foot to 61 ft. 6 inches to give the hitter just a little more time.
Pioneer League Testing Home Run Derby In Place Of Extra Innings
As out-there as some of these rule changes might appear, it’s actually a good thing that MLB is testing what seem to be a bunch of ‘weird’ ideas. In fact, baseball, and all professional sports, should be in a continuous testing environment, always seeking to make their games better for those that watch it. After all, these are spectator sports where players are paid unbelievable amounts of money. Their job is to entertain the folks that pay to watch the team in person and on whatever platform they choose.
Can baseball improve from here? ABSOLUTLEY! Can baseball improve without losing its soul and its ties to the history of the game? That too is possible but less certain. Listening to fans, paying attention to what’s going on in and outside baseball, and continued testing will all contribute to making America’s Pastime a game that can thrive and survive. It may look a little different than it did when you were a kid, but it’s still a ball, a bat, a glove, and the guys that make it happen on the field!
Mark Kolier
As always, we enjoy reading your comments
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Perhaps baseball is at a crossroads similar to the transition of the game from the dead ball era to the livelier ball that rocketed Babe Ruth and others into the slugger era.
Two methods of the game-small ball vs. long ball, but in a more factionalized/over analytical way. Launch angle vs. situational hitting to all fields.
Speaking of long ball, Happy 90th birthday to Willie Mays today!!!
That’s an interesting point Paul. I think it’s safe to say the game is more technical than ever before. Players and coaches ‘know’ things that years ago were less data-driven. In MLB today baseballs are thrown faster, hit harder and missed more often. It’s exciting and frustrating to watch all at the same time. We still have recreational softball and backyard wiffle ball are not all about launch angle and stats!
Mark
All these rule changes are making baseball worse. And their job is not to entertain, it’s to win ballgames. If you want entertainment, go to the movies.
You are absolutely correct as per rule number one in the rule book. I’m still not on board with the wild card (loser’s bracket) and everything else since that. Baseball used to have two events per year that got the fans excited and wanting to listen (watch), the All-Star game and the World Series. Now with interleague (ugh!) these two events are yawnable, not to mention making the All-Star game a political football.
I study baseball during the 19th century and the dead ball era. My heroes of the 50’s will never be equaled again.
Before the discovery of fire the members of our high school football team played both offense and defense — and we liked it that way. There was something challenging and rewarding in developing the skill, stamina and versatility to become both a receiver out of the backfield and a defensive end, for example, and to stay in the game a full 32 minutes “on the clock,” so to speak, or close to it.
Those days are long gone of course, but Dr. Bill Gutman’s recent description of what Mark Kolier rightly calls “nutty” proposals for changing the rules of baseball in order to retain the interest and enthusiasm of fans with flea-like attention spans took this old fool right back to those arguably better days when sporting contests bore a satisfying resemblance to their ingenious original designs. While the lords of baseball weigh the advisability of relieving the tension (and downright torment) of an extra-inning game with three rounds of paper-scissors-rock or two shots at “name that tune” possibly, maybe they should also test-market a slightly more imaginative version of Alexander Cartwright’s suddenly archaic scheme. After all. What was once unique and inspiring has apparently become water-torture on a playing field. What can-we/could-we/should-we do to get the dues-paying fans’ noses out of their cell phones and back to the “action” before they quit buying tickets altogether? There must be a useful solution, say the lords, and the more grotesque and absurd, they also say, the better today’s fans will like it. Let me see if I can give this mood-altering agenda an unsolicited extra boost.
Think modern-day football, as we have done already here, and you’ll be just about home: Have the Dodgers field their eight best glove-men to back up their starting flame-thrower, and let an altogether different lineup, probably nine other guys, try to hit whatever the Giants’ ace happens to be serving on a given day. In other words, these nine agile and athletic guys here can play defense, and those other nine, the designated if stationary sluggers over there, see, will be assigned permanently to the offense. Genius? I guess!
We’ll have two sports in one when you stop to think about it. An intoxicating blend of MLB and the NF of L, with little or no monotony for impatient and easily distracted fans, even in the cheap seats. And of course, if a game is tied after nine full, we can always settle the matter with a 100-meter dash-off between the teams’ two speediest guys, or a dart-throwing duel at ten paces between superannuated managers.
But I don’t know. These toe-in-the-water suggestions are just off the top, really, and subject to the lords’ careful review and contemplative revision as necessary. The idea here is to devise a substitute game that will render baseball as we knew and loved it virtually unrecognizable. The home-run derby brain-wave is an encouraging beginning and all, but we still have a ways to go.
What do you think?
Maybe THE end is now perilously near for this once and former lonesome end. Just look, Bill and Mark, at what your posts have done!
Welcome back, Michael. We’ve missed your witty comments, always laden with heavy-duty satire! Even though I have to read them twice to discern your meaning, they’re always worth the extra effort.
My only problem with this comment, though, is I’m afraid major league honchos, in their infinite wisdom, might read what you said about implementing a separate defensive nine players and a separate offensive nine players…and the satire might go right past them (they’re not particularly bright, you know). They might actually come to the conclusion it’s a good idea!
Before you know it, we’ll be hearing something like: “In its continued effort to increase fan interest, major league baseball is testing out a new concept in the International League this season. It was first put forward by Michael Keedy on the Baseball History Comes Alive website. The idea is to use nine separate players for offense and nine separate players for defense. Even though it would make the game of baseball barely recognizable, if the idea tests well it could be implemented in the major leagues as soon as next season.”
God help us! You might say, “It could never happen,” but did you ever think you’d live to see 7-inning doubleheaders? Just to be on the safe side, maybe I should delete your comment! I’d hate to be indirectly responsible as the one who finally pushed the game we used to love as “baseball” over the cliff!
Anyway…welcome back!
Bravo, Michael. About time we can all make some sense out of the nonsense. Maybe even have designated runners for the slow-footed sluggers so the all defensive team has to stay on their toes. There are so many great ways to improve this dull game. And as they do at the old prize fights, they can have scantily clad women walk around the infield between innings carrying a large placard telling the fans what inning is coming up. All part of the show. Better yet, may have the computer geeks who are now running the game to devise away to block all cellphone reception inside the ballpark. Only problem with that is it would probably cut attendance in half. And instead of the seventh-inning stretch, they could hold a hot-dog eating contest out at second base. That would put some more mustard in the game.
Glad to see that you’ve returned with a home run.
Bill
Hey Bill- I sort of like that idea about the scantily-clad women prancing around the infield holding up the inning signs. Of all the crazy new implements, this may be the only one I actually like. It’s about the only one that doesn’t do any harm! Haha!
Some good, well thought-out ideas, as always, Mark. Here’s what I don’t understand. Instead of looking for gimmicks to make the game more attractive for today’s fans, why not teach the game at the minor league level (even earlier starting in Little League) so that players learn to shorten their swings, make contact, hit the ball to the opposite field, lay down a good bunt when it’s called for. And why not speak to the great pitchers of the past who routinely went nine innings instead of telling pitchers today that they’re incapable of going through a lineup a third time. And how about asking those same pitchers what their training routines were so that none of them ever blew out their elbows. MLB just seems to accept the fact as part of baseball that some 25 percent of big league pitchers have had Tommy John surgery. These are all things that the baseball world seems to have forgotten. Instead it’s a runner on second to start an extra inning, so-called proof via analytics that hitting a home run is the best way to win a game, having five or six relief pitchers parade into every game. Until games stop having more strikeouts than hits, the game is not going to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Agree that today’s athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, better conditioned, etc. While that is true look at the epidemic of hamstring pulls, calf strains, oblique injuries and players needed a day off ever two weeks. Something just ain’t quite right about the whole ball of wax.
Bill
As always, Bill, Gary, Michael, the conversation is just worth having and I appreciate your points individually and collectively. My heart is with you. My head is looking for ways I can stay there. I’d love the minor leagues to be the system that truly develops players talents and knowledge. That was sort of the way it was for so long. It’s obvious that aspect of the game has changed.
My practical side reminds me that young players are WAYYY more expensive and while being careful with the investment is always important, there is an inherent need to get these young players playing MLB ASAP. If they don’t cut it, then they don’t play – that is still the case. I don’t ascribe to the idea that home runs are worth having at all costs. There is an all-or-nothing mindset on the part of both pitchers and hitters.
I’d like to think there’s some happier medium out there where pitchers figure out to hold back a little without getting hammered, and hitters believe that not hitting a home run is their fastest way to a fat contract. So yes, you can call me a dreamer!
I’m with Bill and Gary-bring on the scantily clad girls between innings! And I agree, it’s good to have the eloquent Keedy back with us (not scantily clad I hope). Michael always brings wit, imagery, insight–and volume. When I finished reading your offering, Mr. M, my wall calendar pages were flipping wildly and settled on…May 10, 2022! Only kidding. Mostly.
Also like Mark’s thoughts and the Bill, Gary, Paul and Jim comments. Particularly on training and conditioning. Yes, bigger, stronger, faster athletes. But better baseball muscles? As Dr. Gutman states, the incidence of injuries–hamstring, calf, oblique etc.–we never heard of those back in the day! The players are better looking, but through excessive weight lifting the opposing muscles are perhaps too powerful for the various, swinging, twisting, sliding, stopping and starting moves. How about more just throwing a baseball, running and light weight training during the off season?
TJ surgery is necessary so often because kids are playing too intensely too young, with travel teams and way too many games. Also, young arms cannot take the violent torque of snapping off so many breaking pitches.