My Thoughts on Conference Contraction

In the past HRs were somewhat rare, so it was an exciting play. Ray Chapman died in 1920 when he was hit by a pitch – that was the end of the Dead Ball era, end of small ball. The argument was the ball was dark because they used one ball per game during the dead ball era, and because it was so dirty and scuffed up Chapman didn’t see it. MLB made it mandatory that new balls were used if the old was scuffed at all. Ray Champan’s death is what brought on the modern/HR age. It’s imperative to realize that pitch Carl Mays threw changed baseball forever. MLB realized the HR was an exciting play and began to double down on it, not only making sure all balls were fresh, but also juicing the ball to take advantage of the fan’s love of Ruth and the HR. There is evidence of juiced balls going back to 1920 with Ruth. Balls surviving from that era show a very tightly wound ball. It is 99.99% likely those balls Ruth hit were hyper-juiced. It’s probable the Yankees had their own balls that were more juiced than MLBs hyper-juiced balls of that era. There’s some evidence of this if you read the baseball historians. If you look at Ruth’s swing, it is terrible. He actually walks toward the plate and then twists around, stepping in the bucket and pulling his head out. But anyway, Ruth and his juiced balls (haha), of course, brought on the HR craze.

Before that, the triple and SB were the most exciting plays. E.g. Ty Cobb.

So, to each their own. But the problem with the HR craze is it reduces action, and reducing action increases the time of the ball game. More walks equals more pitches. More pitchers going for the strikeout equals more walks. More batters going for the home run equals more waiting for pitches to drive rather than stroking singles, doubles, triples and hitting to the opposite field. It all equals the inferior game of today with very little action. Baseball isn’t boring because the time of games. Baseball is boring because there is no action.

Manfred’s solution to this is to put in clocks, put runners on 2B in extra innings, restrict relief pitcher usages, and all the other ridiculous rule changes. It’s such a disaster. If you want to solve baseball’s problems, you move the mound back 1ft to discourage strikeouts, move the fences back to incentivize singles, doubles, triples, stolen bases, etc, and owners then begin paying players who do those things well, creating a feedback loop. Also stop juicing the ball. MLB can change the game overnight and make it a more dynamic game. Right now it is seriously out of balance. Manfred’s “solutions” make it more out of balance. It’s imperative to move the mound back for several reasons: athletes today are much more well trained than athletes of the 1880s when 60’6″ was standardized. They’re also taller, and taller means they can shorten the distance even further (Randy Johnson didn’t throw 100mph – he was just so long he shortened that distance by a few feet, and that’s the reading he got on the guns). The mound must be moved back at least a foot to compensate for all of this. The HR has become a marginalized play. Scrubs can hit many HRs now.

What’s interesting is the highest rated WS of the past 40 years was the Cubs. It shows baseball fans still love the story, the superstition, and the underdog. It’s always been about this. Not bat flips and ghetto behavior under the guise of “individualism in the game”…as that ticks up, ratings tick down. MLB is getting by on population growth, which is not sustainable long-term. At some point the game will have to make these changes or continue to die the slow death. And it is slow, but it’s dying and has been since the 1950s when the NFL took over, but really picked up this process in the 1980s and then post 1994 strike. We could see an even more rapid decline with the advent and encouragement of the aforementioned ghetto behavior. It’s as bad as an NFL player celebrating a first down after a 1 yard run. Just a really bad look for the games that turns off thoughtful fans. You are left with viewers who like Jersey Shore and ghetto entertainment rather than the cerebral fans who like strategy, and thus you are on your way to becoming WWF, Arena League, etc.