Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Baseball is dying. Last night's game is a big reason why.

 

Hey, I'll admit it upfront. If it was the Yankees who had come out on top of that snorefest last night, I would be feeling a lot more sanguine today about the state of the game, the state of the world, the outcome of the midterm elections, and my future health.

But win or lose, it doesn't excuse the fact that that game was excruciating. Three-hours-and-twenty-one minutes, featuring a combined 21 strikeouts, 4 walks (none by the Yankees), and 14 hits. 

It was the epitome of Three True Outcomes baseball, though all those strikeouts and walks did not portend a grand display of home run fireworks. Instead, there were all of two doubles and a "triple" that was in fact a routine fly ball, played by our centerfielder like man caught in a dust storm. The major Yankees rally, meanwhile, was created mostly by a Rays pitcher booting a routine bunt. 

Thanks to a change in the weather—and Harry Potter Night—there was a big, festive crowd of 42,192 on hand, and a hint of October baseball in the air. That dissipated quickly thanks to the listless, distracted play by both teams. 

Could that have been due to the latest, brave new MLB system of playoffs, in which the top 40 percent of teams in both leagues now make the postseason? No doubt, that took much of the urgency out of last night's contest—not to mention the fact that it seems to have lured the Yankees' general manager into a curious strategy of writing off August. 

Whatever the case, it quickly quieted the crowd, left so desperate for some sort of entertainment that it resorted to doing the wave in the later innings—then leaving, most of them, well before the last out. Who could blame them?

This wretched showing by the Yankees, of course, came on top of their perfunctory, 3-0 shutout loss to Boston the night before—one played in so quick and diffident a manner that it seemed more like a rumor than a game. One can well imagine what it must have been like to shell out the incredible prices that MLB requires now for admittance, and then sat through either of those performances. 

And yet, ads for tonight's game suggest that fans fork over still more money to watch on Amazon Prime's Streaming Video. Fortunately, there is an alternative venue on TBS, but that's still a cable channel. Fans without cable are out of luck. Fans with cable still have to search out other games on streaming and other, new, pay-per-view services—what my wife calls "cable's cable"—in order to see any baseball at all.  

This comes, mind you, at a time when MLB routinely accepts immense public subsidies to build new stadiums that keep getting smaller and smaller, so that more luxury boxes can be shoehorned inside. Imagine if a politician announced that he was spending hundreds of millions—even billions—in taxpayers' money to build a new public park...but one that will charge a high entrance fee that will constantly increase, while more and more of the park is roped off for the exclusive use of the very rich.

Yet, this is what we accept to see major-league baseball today.

And to see what, exactly?

It used to be that many fans went to games so they could show their kids the great Cobb/Ruth/DiMaggio, etc. My first two trips to the ballpark came when my father and uncle took me to see Mickey Mantle and  

Willie Mays, respectively. Later, when I was in high school, I took the train into Boston in two different seasons to watch the Red Sox play some very bad Brewers teams, just because it meant a chance to see the great Henry Aaron, even if he was drawing near to the end of his magnificent career.

I don't think anyone at last night's game is going to tell the grandchildren about any of the players they saw—with the possible exception of Aaron Judge. These were supposedly two of the best teams in the American League, but what a collection of mediocrities! 

The interminable, interchangeable procession of pitchers. The collision of one team hitting all of .242, the other, .238. Neither playing with anything resembling competence, much less inspiration. 

Maybe this is just what parity looks like. But I suspect that it is much more the result of raising players to be thoroughly one-dimensional, in the Three True Outcomes game—a game dominated by such meaningless statistics as "exit velo" and "spin rate." 

What it has produced is pitchers who throw harder than ever, with more movement on the ball...and who can't last five innings, can't pitch to contact, and inevitably shuttle off to have another Tommy John surgery. It means batters who twist themselves into corkscrews, trying to hit the ball out of the park on every swing—and who go down with constant pulls, strains, tweaks, aches. 

(And obviously, a great many of them are still trying to get through the rigors of the new game with performance-enhancing drugs, which will have a terrible effect on them—and on the children who imitate them—down the road.)


Lo and behold, it's August and yet another Yankees team is a mess of injuries, worn thin by the stretch drive. Gee, could it have something to do with the way these players are taught to play, and prepare?

The lords of MLB have decided to remake their sport in the image of football and basketball, games that have also been simplified and dumbed down. But they are played at an almost terrifying level of speed and violence, and thus retain their fan bases.

Baseball, on the other hand, just gets slower and more gimmicky. The regular season is about twice as long as those in basketball and hockey; almost ten times the length of a football season—and thus too long for a format in which everybody makes the playoffs, and much of the regular season is a glorified exhibition season. But here we are.

Teams have decided to cope with the new game in different ways. Some, such as the Washington Nationals, try bunching stars together for a quick run at the World Series, then disbanding them, expecting their fans to be content with the memories for the next five, ten, fifteen years—maybe longer.

Others, such as the Rays, count on continually bringing up promising young players—then dispatching them for even younger players, after a run or two. The Red Sox, of course, have hit upon a strategy of almost continuous deconstruction and rapid rebuilding. The Yankees have decided that just contending is good enough for them.

Very, very few teams actually give their fans the thrill of trying to put together a contender that will last for a few years, built around a solid pillar of beloved players. You'll never see a Core of Four on the Yankees or anybody else, ever again.  

Players, as players, have been turned into computer ciphers, mere pieces of an electronic calculation. It's impossible to feel sorry for them, of course. Most of them are paid ridiculous amounts of money, and complain about the smallest burdens and obligations that are placed upon them. The owners are outright thieves, who in a better world would be hounded out of civil society for their greed.

What I feel bad about is us, the fans, who are now constantly subjected to non-games—anti-games?—like the one last night, which we're just supposed to accept no matter what the price, or the waste of time.

Somehow, I don't think anyone will be writing songs about this generation of baseball.





 



22 comments:

AboveAverage said...

Wish I could donate blood . . . but I'm a Vulcan.

Hazel Motes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hazel Motes said...

I must add that your critiques of analytics--so-called--are nothing but a string of ill-digested misconceptions from third-hand accounts. You once admitted to never having read a book on the subject, and frankly, it shows. How about Baseball Between the Numbers for starters? I bet you'd find it a suprisingly engaging and informative read, and might spare you your Sisyphean labor of endlessly criticizing something you don't understand (Dylan warned us against just this folly):

https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Between-Numbers-Everything-About/dp/0465005470/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GBBWUNAWLI3B&keywords=baseball+between+the+numbers&qid=1660679021&sprefix=baseball+between+the+num%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-1

Joe Formerlyof Brooklyn said...


Just watched ep2 of The Captain -- which ends with Jeter saying "loyalty one way is stupidity."

...turns out Soto recently adopted that, then lost his mojo
https://nypost.com/2022/07/22/juan-soto-retweets-then-deletes-derek-jeter-loyalty-quote/

If Jeet is right -- what the F are we doing remaining loyal to this farce of a travesty of a parody of a baseball team???

Kevin said...

Barney, time for your shot and calm down. You read a book on analytics and suddenly you should be in the Dodgers front office. Or working on the problem of programming quantum computers. Ok, you're a successful troll, put that on your resume.

BTR999 said...

Thank you Hoss, many truths in your post.
“Cable’s Cable” . Loved that!

Rufus T. Firefly said...

"And--for the record--this is NOT a personal attack..."

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee!

You're right we don't deserve your super-smart prophesies or your gifts of salvation. Because you're too good for us. Such a great mind and never being an delusional asshole is really too good for this blog. You are really the great and powerful Oz.

Now leave.

Hazel Motes said...

Kevin -- I thought you were all about civility. Here you are initiating another personal attack. That makes you 100-percent full of shit, doesn't it? Along with your made-up theses about how and why players succeed at AAA, with no statistical or analytical citations? Just your usual lies and fabrications and personal attacks?

You need to find some way of living other than strutting your Travis Bickle impression on this blog. It's getting a bit worrisome.

Rufus T. Firefly said...

You're right we don't deserve your super-smart prophesies or your gifts of salvation. Because you're too good for us. Such a great mind and never being an delusional asshole is really too good for this blog. You are really the great and powerful Oz.

Mildred Lopez said...


Analytics brought us Joey Gallo, Das Boot, Josh Fucking Donaldson. Analytics says Gleyber Torres has an OPS+ of 107 when anyone watching the team for more than a casual look-in can see Torres has the baseball IQ of a koala bear.

Not saying advanced stats are worthless, just that they’ve turned hitting into TTO and pitching into an endless parade of interchangeable parts. To the point where the game is excruciatingly boring to the average guy who gives not two fucks about exit velo, launch angle, or xOBA, who just wants to see a goddamned hit with runners in scoring position. The game makes money on advertising because there’s 9,000 channels now, and on gambling because it’s fucking effortless for people with a problem to blow the mortgage payment on the Mets Braves game. It’s no fun. Even when the Yankees were the “OMG 1998 Yankees!!!” they weren’t fun outside of Cortes and Judge. Ask yourself - do you actually LIKE anyone on the team? Shit like that doesn’t count anymore.

Rufus T. Firefly said...

What Mildred said.

Kevin said...

"Das Boot", the movie? The greatest submarine movie ever? Shirley you aint knocking that " Das Boot"!

Mildred your assessment of Torres is hilarious and spot on, as was your post.

HoraceClarke66 said...

VERY true, Mildred. And really, that's their business model: 'Fuck it, we'll sell it to gamblers and people who don't want to watch cooking competitions.' And like many people running shit businesses in America, they're probably right. It probably WILL work. Until it doesn't.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Love Das Boot, Kev. Never seen the full mini-series, though. Good?

Also, what would you rank as the top 10 or so sub movies? I'm serious! They have an innate drama to them.

Went to tour a WW II-era one, when it was down by the Enterprise. I'm not somebody who freaks in small spaces or anything like that. But holy shit! To be in one of those for months???

Doug K. said...

I only know six...

1) The Hunt For Red October

2) The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming.

3) The Fantastic Four Movie (vs. The Sub Mariner)

4) The Italian Classic "Il Mio Cane E' Sottomarino"

5) The Dan Quisenberry Story.

And 6) Jared Fogle "The Prison Years"

There was another one about the adventures of PT 73 done from the perspective of the guys in the Japanese sub that kept getting blown up but I can't remember it's name.



Kevin said...

Horace, there is a "editor's edition" (or maybe final cut) which I have. I recently learned that the Germans had a mini-series, which I believe had about the same runtime. I've seen the movie at the theater in the early eighties, and a cuts of various lengths. The lonnng version is a real slog, I didn't notice anything of note other than more waves, and shorter tempers. The cut that IMHO to look for is the one below the director's cut (I'm someone who can go for hours with movies, but I don't actually care to be on U-Boat patrol). When it comes to sub movies I love "The Enemy Below" with Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens,and the classic "Run Silent, Run Deep". I'm not a fan of " The Hunt for Red October", the editing made the movie incomprehensible to me during the battle scenes. Other than the aforementioned films I have to tap out. Do you have any to recommend? BTW, the book version of "Das Boot" aka The Boat" is a great read. I went on a U-BOAT in Charleston, SC some years ago, and man you're not exaggerating, I think that I could handle a week or two at sea, but throw in even the chance of a depth charge, NFW!!!

Kevin said...

Doug-K, LMAO!

Doug K. said...

Kevin - thanks.

I rewrote #6. It's now...

"From Subs to Tossed Salads. Jared Fogle: The Prison Years"

Wezil1 said...

Did someone say PT73? Wasn’t McHales Navy? My kinda TV - not exactly PC tho.

Rufus T. Firefly said...

Ice station zebra

The Hammer of God said...

Amen, Hoss. The direction they are going in, the game will be unwatchable very soon. It's already pretty unwatchable.

I think they could fix it with some simple tweaks. The pitching has forged way ahead of the hitting. Lowering the mound from 18 to 12 inches would help. So would limiting the number of pitchers on a roster to 12. So that's five starters and seven relievers. Should be enough and that should stop a lot of the one inning relief pitching.

The Hammer of God said...

Re. submarine movies, there was an old sci-fi affair about shrinking a submarine to a tiny size and injecting it into a guy's brain to try to repair damage from an assassination attempt. I think it was called "Fantastic Voyage". Good scenes of what goes on in the bloodstream.