Sunday, April 24, 2022

"Luck is the residue of design."

 

That was the favorite saying of one of the greatest of baseball men, Wesley Branch Rickey. 

It pertains to the continuing descent into unreality of your New York Yankees. The latest symptom of which being David Cone's claim from the broadcast booth yesterday that—according to their "exit velo"!—the Yanks SHOULD have been hitting .446 on the day...instead of the .290 they did end up hitting, or the .233 they were hitting until the last two at-bats of that dramatic, walk-off win.

Sigh. 

THIS again?

How long will the Yankees and their apologists continue to exist in this twilight reality?

"Exit velo" is not a real thing. It means nothing whatsoever. And the notion that the Yanks thus far have been hitting in "bad luck" and will soon break out—as evidenced by their "exit velo"—is fanciful, to say the least.

Sure, the Bombers are almost certain to improve on their hitting start to the season. They could hardly fail to do so. Before yesterday's game, that start rivaled the worst hitting done by any team, ever, since 1900.

But that doesn't mean this is a good-hitting team, just held back by luck. 

Line drives—and particularly huge, lazy flyballs—often get caught in baseball. This has always been so, and always will be.

Take it from somebody old enough to have seen Sparky Lyle as the Yanks' closer, back in a time when the Stadium outfield was much larger than it is today. With certain, right-handed batters, Lyle would just toss it in there and let them hit prodigious, harmless flies that were easily tracked down by Mick the Quick and company. 

What Branch Rickey—pictured above with his 40-year-old son, whose growth was unfortunately stunted by Rickey's insistence on smoking cigars everywhere—realized was that, yes, luck is part of the game. 

But more often than not, it's only going to reflect the preparation you have made. Rickey, who put together not one but two baseball dynasties on a dime, understood that where the mind leads, fortune will follow. Get some good hitters—hitters who know how to make contact—and the Yankees' "luck" will make a miraculous about-face.







18 comments:

  1. Cole gets through the first! Wahoo! (No reference to the old Cleveland mascot intended.)

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  2. OMG! Cole just went 2 without giving up any dingers. Or runs!

    Horace, we need to keep track of this developing story!

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  4. This Kiner-Kid isn't half bad . . .

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  5. And thank you, D.J., for an illustration of what Mr. Rickey was talking about.

    Did he get lucky with Mercado butchering that ball in right? Absolutely.

    But he created the opportunity to get lucky there by hitting a ball hard to the opposite field. If he had tried to pull it, as so many of these moaxes try to pull every pitch, he would likely have fouled it off or hit something very weak.

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  6. Joey Whiffs drove in a run???

    We're in bizarro world.

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  7. YES! Joey is on the board!

    Much as I wish he was not on our team, I was really starting to feel sorry for the big galoot.

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  8. Six whole runs
    Six whole runs

    See how they score
    See how they score

    They got hits when they needed them
    Have you ever seen such a sight in your life?

    Six whole runs
    Six whole runs...

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  9. What's even more amazing is Cole: he's gone four whole innings without giving up a run on 53 pitches!

    But I'm not getting my hopes up. It's April and it's Cleveland.

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  10. The One for Three Gallow is better than the OH-FUR-Guy, right?

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  11. Everything going right today...so far!

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  12. Locastro? I mean, Locastro? Wow.

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  13. The Locastro Disastro,

    Sorry, trying anything here!

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  14. I have two things to say:

    The Guardians are terrible.

    AND...

    Can you imagine how many home runs DiMaggio would have hit with the fences moved in life that?

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  15. First year DiMaggio came up, 1936, the LF line was 281 ft., "straightaway left" was 395 ft., "left-center" was 460 ft., and deepest CF, 490 ft.

    The Yanks were in the midst of pushing their left field fences back, though, and never mind that they had just acquired a right-handed hitting superstar. By 1937, the line was 301 ft., straightaway left, 402-415 ft. (the ball Gionfriddo caught was 415 ft.), left center, 457 ft., and deepest center...moved into a "mere" 461 feet.

    (For years, the longest ball ever hit in the Stadium, by Mantle, didn't clear CF by much!)


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  16. Today's dimensions, by contrast, are listed as:

    LF line: 318 ft.

    Left-center: 399 ft.

    CF: 408 ft.

    So, yeah...generally shorter, though longer here and there.

    All in all, Joe D. hit 213 HR and batted .334 at home; 148 HR, and .316 on the road.

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