Jeff Danziger for May 30, 2024

As a proud Kansas Citian, who has visited the (the nannybot censored this, how legendarily stupid, dishonest and pathetic!) Leagues Museum plenty of times (and it is worth the trip from anywhere on the planet Earth), I am both in favor of this but cautious. The circumstances weren’t as different as we might think, but they were different. But as Mark Twain reminds us, it is difference of opinion that makes horse races…..

*Barry Bonds

Well, Danziger is right … this will keep folks going on and on an on for another hundred years … or until they start using robots …

Hank Aaron is the home run champ, I don’t think this is disputed by any US Americans.

I find baseball boring… but baseball STATISTICS average out to be even more boring! … for me.

This should be interesting.

If nothing else, it proves how many GOOD players there were in the “Whats-it League”.

Yeesh!

I am not pleased to see Fernie is back. PLEASE don’t get into it with him (or any of the other troll.)

Baseball. Am I right?

Another circumstance in which racial inequality deprived us of potential contributions from citizens.

The game of baseball today isn’t the same game as it was sixty-seventy years ago. The “statistics” are kind of apples and oranges. Equipment has changed and rules have changed. The institution of reviewable plays, and video replays in general make this game very different from the “good old days”.

Well….gives the dopes something to argue about, other than politicks.

What should be a simple action becomes an impossibility when a committee is involved.

This is something that I can live with in baseball. What I can live without in baseball is the DH, the over-reliance on SABRmetrics, stop clocks, larger bases, second guessing umpires with video, pitchers who can’t complete a game and are called “great,” and City Connect uniforms.

Did they ever remove the (*) from Roger Maris’ HR season record?

IMHO, many recent records made while the player was taking PEDs should at least have an asterisk or footnote explaining that the player was taking PEDs at the time of the record. (PED = Performance Enhancing Drugs)

Hank Aaron had more class in his pinkie than Barry Bonds could ever aspire to

Wonder if the NHL will acknowledge WHA records… nah…

It like super-Gretzky, if not for expansion and a longer season he never would got his seasonal goal count. He would not lasted one shift against #9

With the pitch timer, defensive shift restrictions and bigger bases, the 2023 MLB season featured arguably the most ambitious series of rules changes since the dawn of the game’s Modern Era.

This year’s changes? Much more subtle.

Right-handed batters, rejoice. The runner’s lane has been widened to include the dirt between the foul line and the infield grass, providing a more direct path from the right-handed batter’s box to first base. … the runner will now be deemed in compliance with the rule as long as both feet remain on the dirt path between home and first. The simplicity of “dirt good, grass bad” will make for an easier evaluation by umpires.

The pitch timer has been reduced from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on. It will remain 15 seconds with the bases empty, and pitchers retain the ability to step off (or attempt a pickoff) and reset the clock twice per plate appearance without penalty.

PACE-RELATED TWEAKS

In addition to the pitch timer reduction with runners on, there are a few other changes aimed at tightening things up…

Pitching changes: If a new pitcher steps onto the warning track with less than 2 minutes remaining on the inning break clock, the clock will reset to 2 minutes, rather than 2:15. Inning breaks that contained a pitching change averaged 2:35 in 2023. Broadcasters are only guaranteed two minutes of commercial time.

Mound visits: Each team’s allotment will be reduced from five to four, though an extra mound visit will still be awarded for the ninth inning if the defensive team has zero remaining visits at the end of the eighth. In 2023, clubs averaged only 2.3 mound visits, which surveys show to be among fans’ least favorite events in baseball.

Continued

In a further effort to improve pace, umpires will permit defensive players to signal for a mound visit without actually visiting the mound. This addresses situations in which teams use a mound visit not to discuss strategy but, rather, to buy time between pitches.

Circumvention: The pitch clock operator, known as the Field Timing Coordinator, will now restart the clock after a dead ball (such as a foul ball) when the pitcher has the ball and play is ready to resume. There will no longer be a requirement for the pitcher to be on the mound, removing the pitcher’s ability to delay the start of the clock by walking around the edge of the mound.

Batter faced requirement: A pitcher sent to warm up for an inning must face at least one batter (in addition to any requirements under the three-batter minimum rule). MLB found 24 instances in 2023 of a pitcher warming up between innings and getting replaced before throwing a pitch, adding approximately three minutes of dead time per event. There were two such instances during the World Series.

All copied from Anthony Castrovince April 24 @ MLB dot com

So they are making changes to speed up the game. That won’t return to me the (seemingly) half-lifetime I spent in the stands watching the grass grow because the boss’ idea of an “employee benefit” was to take us out to watch the Orioles. I saw more excitement in fewer hours playing bridge.

I have an uncle who is both a statistician and a devoted baseball geek. I’m quite sure he’s got spreadsheets devoted to normalizing the data already. :-)

As a non-fan I find this nit-picking about who to include remarkably ridiculous

The “best” sport I ever saw on television (I had a huge 15 foot dish in my back yard at the time) was once around 2 or three A.M. when some obscure network was broadcasting a live feed of an “Australian – rules” football game – played with an American-shaped ball which the players could pick up and run with – as long as they “dribbled” every so often and the play didn’t stop when a player was injured – they lay on the field until the stretcher-bearers could reach them through and around the game play.

I actually though it was a “satire” on American football until I queried the members of my group on what passed for the “internet” at that time called “A.R.P.A. net” – in the mid to late 1980s – and found it was really an Australian game that was really played that way -replete with refs that wore white shirts, ties and “business hats”…

I recorded a couple of games with my then-new Sony Betamax recorder but have since lost the tapes – sigh…

It’s about time AND long overdue…..if the previous leaders drop down too bad….more than one of the N€gr0 League players ran rings around’em (Sorry I had to amend my comment by an alternate spelling even though the cartoonist could use that word…..)

Hank Aaron had 755 home runs in while playing in the MLB. He only had 5 home runs in the three months he played for the Indianapolis Clowns in the League for black players. (Apparently, GoComics won’t allow me to call the league by its official name, because one of the words in that name is on the GoComics banned list.) That would only bring his HR total up to 760, still 2 fewer than Barry Bonds’ 262.

Moreover, MLB is only adding the that League’s records for the years from 1920 to 1948. That league collapsed as a competitive league in 1948 and after that date was more of a barnstorming league and was no longer playing at a major league level. So MLB isn’t adding any records from that League that came after 1948. As Hank Aaron played for the Clowns in 1952, his records from that League wouldn’t have been added to his stats anyway.

So either way, Hank Aaron won’t overtake Barry Bonds as the all-time home run leader; much as I wish it could be otherwise.

Nice to see Josh Gibson get the recognition he has long deserved.

Who the hell cares who put how many balls here or there ? Monkey brains.