Posted on 08/16/2018 8:46:22 AM PDT by DFG
One thing you learn from studying baseball history is that people have always predicted the sport’s demise. Over and over, the game weathers every perceived crisis and continues to thrive. More than 70 million fans will attend major league games this season; another 40 million or so will go to minor league games. Countless more watch the sport on television and online.
And yet attendance is down, and more and more balls are being kept out of play. Some longtime observers consider the shifting landscape — hitters swinging for the fences, pitchers throwing everything with maximum effort, fielders standing in unusual spots — and wonder what has happened to their game.
“Keith and I were talking, and I said, ‘You know, our window is probably three years until we can’t work anymore,’ because the game is going to be so different,” said Ron Darling, the former Mets pitcher and broadcast partner of Keith Hernandez, the former Mets first baseman. “I mean, what was fair is foul, and what’s foul is fair.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Even the NFL started to become a bore when coaches started calling every single play from the sidelines.
MLB players went on strike in 1994, no World Series.
Goodbye MLB. I do not care almost a quarter century now.
You all can keep the caring.
I have always hated umpires.
When you said they aren’t needed (except to make mistsakes and rsuin the fans’ enjoyment of the game—my idea) it reminded me of the old railroads.
The railroad worker unions were so strong in the 1940s and 1950s that when modern locomotives did not need a “fireman” at all, they had to keep them in order to placate the unions!
In 1985 a president named Ronald Reagan got them to accept “the fireman’s job to no longer be warranted or necessary for the safe operation of trains .” Millions of dollars had to be paid without purpose and decades of “most contentious labor dispute” had to be wasted in fighting.
26 years earlier the move to diesel power had changed the trains and at first they thought a fireman was needed.
Umpires call balls and strikes based on bias, prejudice, hatred, old grudges, and scores to settle against plays in earlier games. Foxtrax et al show the truth and fans know the balls are not where the umpires just said. Announcers make phony BS chatter but know it is a fraud.
That wasn’t the cleverest post of the day.
Make the baseball bigger and color it bright orange...
In my opinion, the most scathing example of what is wrong with modern baseball was the 2016 NL wild card playoff game between the Giants and Mets. This was lining up as an epic pitching duel between two of the best pitchers in the game at the time: Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard.
Bumgarner pitched a complete-game shutout, giving up only four hits through nine innings. The Giants won 3-0 with three runs in the top of the ninth inning off Mets closer Jeurys Familia, but the real story was the progression of the game through the first seven innings.
Syndergaard actually outpitched Bumgerner through the first seven innings, giving up just two hits and striking out ten. But he was relieved after throwing 108 pitches through seven innings. Bumgarner, on the other hand, was still pitching hard after seven innings -- mainly because he was facing a Mets lineup filled with sloppy, undisciplined hitters who were swinging at pitches out of the strike zone even early in the count. I don't think I've ever seen a game with more hitters making weak outs on first pitches, or facing 0-2 counts after swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. I think Bumgarner only had about 75-80 pitches through seven innings, if it was even that many.
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We already have that; we call it a basketball.
I have seen the shift put on Matt Carpenter of the Cards a LOT this season. As a result of that, he actually has several lead-off bunt hits. First pitch of the game.
Fun to watch.
Are you watching the same game I am? Every single night the Cardinals bunt and steal. They manufacture runs every game. It is truly a team sport for them. Granted, that didn't really start until after the fired Matheny, and Shildt took over as acting coach, but they now own MLB's longest win streak.
Although I live in Huntington Beach & watch the Dodgers, I grew up in IL & the Cardinals are my favorite team. I don't get to watch them much. Was Carpenter bunting much in the early season? He was batting like crap until the last couple of months. Yes, he is one guy who the shift has taken away many hits & he is the perfect guy to use the bunt to beat the shift. Can handle the bat well & has fairly good speed. Bunt for a base hit, until they take away the shift & then swing away.
BTW, some of the best baseball was watching the Cardinals in the 1980's when they generated runs by bunting & hitting the ball into the turf for hits & stealing bases & hitting & running. They could generate 3 runs and never hit the ball out of the infield. All speedsters & very fun to watch.
We have technology (that you can see on any TV broadcast) to not only assess the exact speed of every pitch but exactly where it lands at the plate with regard to the ball and strike zone.
So essentially we can call balls and strikes at the plate with a camera. With the same technology, the umpire in the booth can call all other routine plays such as foul balls, safe/out calls at the bases, etc., be
Then we have instant-replay technology that will allow all close plays to be ruled on from the booth just like they already do in the NFL.
Har!! If we let computers call the game, will the Russians get involved?
As of today, the Cardinals as a team have 47 stolen bases through more than 120 games. They have two players with 10 or more stolen bases on the roster.
The NL average for team SBs this year is 59. The Cardinals are tied in the #12 spot among the 15 NL teams in this category. They'd be #13 in the AL.
Agreed. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them in the 80's. I'm beginning to see the same type of play now that Shildt is in charge. We are playing baseball again, and not just hitting home runs.
Carpenter was hitting like crap early on (.140 avg), but is now up to .276. That's quite an increase, which means he's been hitting for a lot higher than that to bring up his average. Sure he's hit some home runs, but he's bunted, and singled all over the place, too. It's been fun watching him play since June.
ok—how are they doing in hit-and-runs?
Carpenter broke out the salsa, and Bader has added a real spark.
Keep in mind that a hit-and-run is a sound offensive strategy even for teams that don't try to manufacture runs. It helps reduce the odds of hitting into a double play.
P.S. — The Cardinals ARE one of the league leaders in sacrifice hits. :-)
If they can make it to the post-season you might have yourself a World Series contender there.
Lost me during the first strike. Never watching it again.
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