In this morning's Sacramento Bee Sports dated 8/21/'18, there was an article by Gary Peterson arguing that baseball was better before Metrics. I'm not a huge baseball enthusiast, but along with the article, there was a photo of Goose Gossage stating that baseball today was very difficult for him to watch. As much as I was a fan, Gossage was one of my favorite baseball players. He had a great name and a great flair and a great mustache. So, I read. After I finished it seemed to me he'd made his point: "The game is all home runs and strikeouts, absent all risk/reward gambits." Why? Because the actuarial tables say they result in negative metrics. The writer went on to illustrate with a bunch of comparisons between teams of the past vs teams of the future. Since he used metrics, my eyes glazed over. Let's see if I get the gist: Hits to strike out ratios - today more strikeouts than hits. According to Scott Miller of Belcher Report: If you have a poetic bone in your body, you got to love this: As if they [batters] were 18 blindfolded men chasing a butterfly. As for pitching. American League as of today had turned in only 20 complete games. The National League only 10. At this rate, AL would complete 31 and NL 13. Giants Sam Jones in 1960 completed 13 himself. Onward and upward. According to the writer, there has been an average of 1.37 stolen base attempts in the majors this season, the lowest figure since 1964.
I told my wife. "Geez," she said. "the stolen base was the only exciting play in baseball." That sort of summed it up for me. But I email my friend Larry Colton, ex of the Phillies and holder of the single game strike out record for the University of California for his thoughts on the subject, who is my baseball guru for his comments.
We wait with bated breath.
Metrics strives for some kind of statistical perfection. Not only is that impossible, it is boring.
Not exactly a baseball poem, but it could be.
Midnight Lazaruses by Chaun Ballard, from Rattle summer 2018 issue
we were married
to
concrete
playgrounds, blacktops
where seven days
nights
a ball would drop
and like that
bodies would complete
shadows
and a game would be
found.
2 comments:
In baseball the game has been reduced to walks, strikeouts, and home runs. The ball put in play (the poetry of the game) has been diminished. Has the same thing happened to basketball? The NBA used to flow like jazz players improvising off each other. Now you can either have the three pointer off a pick or a dunk (or layup) off a pick. The two point shot (the equivalent of baseball's ball in play) is no more. Farewell to ebb and flow of ball movement, surgical passing, the ignition of the outlet pass, the thrill of the fast break, posting up, the yeoman's work of offensive rebounding, and centers restoring order after the lane has been lawlessly violated. The dunk (just a layup with an exclamation point usually) is basketball's home run. Once majestic and now so common as to produce a yawn. I love both sports, I respect the athletes and their abilities, but I say both games have had their artistry very much reduced.
Fielders, not pitchers were supposed to get outs when the game was created, balls were supposed to be put into play. I liked that version of the game better than the "homer or strike out"version. And it's a lot harder to steal against a guy throwing a 95 mph fastball than against a guy with a Frank Tannana curve.
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