As I said in my last
article for Sodbuster, I have the old Chevy jingle (“baseball, hot dogs,
apple pie and Chevrolet”) running through my brain.
So, I am going to talk about baseball.
If you know me well,
this shouldn’t be a surprise to you.
I am a huge baseball fan. If
George Will can wander away from politics to talk baseball, then it ought
to be fine for me. As Guy
Curtis said in his last column, it is time to turn to the new media of the
Internet. This is just
further proof that the traditional media has nothing up on Sodbuster.
The most irritating
thing about this baseball season, next to my beloved Royals’ horrendous
bullpen, is the daily barrage of baseball media ranting how bad the game
on the field is today. Just
pick up the sports section of your newspaper, surf the web, turn on
Baseball Tonight or your local TV or radio broadcast of your favorite
team. You will get the same
mantra. The game is turning
into arena football because there are too many runs being scored.
The ball is juiced, and the stadiums are too small.
Major league baseball has been taken over by the Council on Foreign
Relations and Trilateral Commission in an attempt to destroy the game so
we can all embrace soccer -- the chosen sport of the new world order. Last, and not least, all designated hitters are a secret
order made up of a league of Neo Nazis and post-modern Stalinists who are
brainwashed in the tradition of the Manchurian candidate who will launch a
revolution on opening day next season, April 1, 2000.
Ok, I am getting
carried away with my sarcasm. However,
the level of stupidity coming from the mouths of people who should know
better has almost reached the level of absurdity.
The real problem of baseball is not an explosion of runs scoring,
but an explosion of fairy tales of what the game used to be like.
If you are prepared to
have your faith shaken in your favorite baseball analyst, then come take a
walk through baseball history with me -- or, to be precise, through the
history of the American League walk rates. The
common wisdom of the baseball “experts” of the day is that the strike
zone has shrunk. I will
concentrate on the AL because the “experts” all seem to agree it is
the inferior league. The more
than a quarter of a century old “Designated Hitter Rule” is destroying
the game.
There may very well be
some truth to the strike zone being smaller. I grumble about it every time
a Royals pitcher doesn’t get the call on a borderline pitch. If almost every fan, player, manager, coach and all the media
covering baseball think it, it must be true. Of course, most everyone once believed that the world was flat
and the center of the universe.
The rules defining the
strike zone haven’t changed in most of our lifetimes. My perception of what is and isn’t a strike hasn’t changed
in the almost 30 years I have been an avid baseball fanatic. I
see some umpires enforce the strike zone based on how they feel at the
moment. However, I will leave that for another day. I
am not going to pile on the umpires.
They are finally getting the criticism they have justly deserved
for a long time. I am not
even going to refute the idea that the strike zone is smaller.
However, I will refute
the idea that the size of the strike zone has had any significant effect
on the game. If the strike
zone is really smaller, then it seems logical that the amount of walks
would be higher today than it ever has been.
To come up with that
answer, all I had to do was wade through the yearly walk totals for the
last 98 years. It took
several hours because I could find team totals, but not league totals.
So, I had to add up every year’s team totals to get the league
totals then divide it by the number of teams and number of games played.
My little walk through
the numbers showed that walk totals haven’t change a whole lot over the
years. Pitchers give up
between 3 and 4 walks per game. The
last time the American League average for walks per game was less than 3
was in 1912. Prior to then,
from 1901 through 1912, they gave up between 2 and 3 walks per game.
The first decade of
the century saw each team average 2.32 walks per game. From 1910-1919, the average was 3.08 per game. With
the arrival of Babe Ruth and the end of the Dead Ball Era, walks increased
during the 20's to 3.27 per game.
The walk total kept
increasing in each of the next three decades. During the 1930's, American League teams averaged 3.68 walks
per game. During the 1940's,
the total increased to 3.73 per game.
It reached an all-time decade high in the 1950's with an average of
3.77 walks per game for each team. That
is right. The highest walk
totals for a decade was the 1950's, not the 1990's. That would be 7.54 for
a combined team total.
However, where we find
validity in the perception that there are more walks today is the fact
that walk totals declined from the 1960's through the 1980's. During
the 1960's, the walk total dropped to 3.32 per game. During the 70's, it
had another slight drop to 3.27 per game.
It reached the lowest total since World War I in the 1980's, with a
total of 3.24 walks per game.
During the 90's, the
total through AL games of August 22, 1999 is up to 3.55. For the entire century, the average is 3.32 walks per game. That
means the 1990's have seen a grand total of .23 more walks per game than
the overall average -- or an additional walk every 4 games.
If you throw out the first two decades of the Dead Ball Era, the
average is 3.48 walks per game -- or only .07 more walks per game, or 1
extra walk about every 14 games.
Four times, walk
totals reached 4 or more per game for a single season. The first time was in 1938, which saw an even 4 walks per
game. The second and third
times came in back-to-back years (1948 and 1949) with the two record
highs. In 1948, the average was 4.25, and in 1949, it set the
all-time high with 4.57 per game. The
last time it happened was 1956 when the average was 4.07. The highest walk total of the 90's was 3.79 in 1996. So
far this year, the AL is averaging 3.65 walks per game.
When you look at the
results, we are basically dealing with minute differences over time.
Pitchers have always walked 3 or 4 batters per game. I
don’t know if that says anything conclusive about the size of today’s
strike zone versus some point in the past; but it does suggest to me that
whatever differences there may be, it has had very little impact on the
game.
I think it does
provide further evidence that all the whining about all the runs being
scored is also overblown. Many of you read my article earlier this year
showing how the run totals of the 90's, while high, were duplicated and,
in some cases, exceeded the late 1920's through the 1940's, primarily the
1930's. During those periods
and during the 1990's, an average score for games was/is 6-4, versus the
overall historical average of 5-3 with the lowest average score being 4-3.
Clearly, it is nothing to be upset about.
It is time to stop the whining about changes in the
game that are, at most, very minor. We
need to admit and enjoy the fact that the 1990's are a golden age of
hitters who are bigger and stronger than those of the past. Combine that
with a shortage of quality pitchers and new records are being set like
they are in every sport. In fact, I think a good case can still be made that baseball
has changed less over the years than any other sport. Individual skill is
still the biggest determinate in whether new records are set -- rather
than improved biology or some conspiracy worthy of an episode of the X
Files.
To Joe's
previous article
