DrungoHazewood

From a baseball-fever post: "In the National League, from 1876 until 1886, with the exception of 1877, the team that batted first was determined by a coin flip. In 1877 the home team batted first. In 1885 in the American Association, at the time a major league (1882-1891), the home team was given the option of when to bat; the National League followed suit starting in 1887. In the NL 1894 season, for instance, the home team batted first in 324 of the 793 games played (40.9%)"

Right, the O's were the visitor but they batted in the bottom of the ninth. The Senators probably chose to bat first as was the option at the time.

It wasn't universal in that era that the home team batted last. I'll have to look when that became a hard-and-fast rule, but I suspect the O's were the visitor at Washington and batted last.

I made an error. Missed that Duke Esper had started on the mound, then I think Gleason pinch hit, and Hoffer then went in to pitch.

What I keep hammering on is that baseball is wildly different from years ago, but nobody changed any rules so nobody was in control of the change. Nobody asked if a strikeout an inning was a good thing, it just happened. Nobody decided it was a good idea to have 1.5 homers/team/game, it just happened. Doing nothing doesn't keep the game the same, it just removes the question of what we want baseball to be like from the equation, and we get whatever we get.

I think it was all downhill from the moment they decided foul balls were now strikes.

I absolutely agree that there are a lot of factors in baseball's declining popularity. But I think one of them is the ratio of action to standing around, and that makes the really long games worse. I've often said that coolness is very hard to make happen. You just can't do A, B, C and suddenly you have a big group of 25-year-olds drive their Cadillacs to the baseball game. Which is fine. If this is very unpopular then don't do it. But baseball needs to be careful about selection bias in their market research. Of course many people who really like baseball the way it (which is probably a reasonable description of the folks going to MLBTR.com) is are going to vote against major rules changes. The problem is how to stabilize or even grow the fanbase. They should be asking people who are somewhat interested in baseball but are turned off by some things.

From the archives of the Baltimore American newspaper: By winning yesterday, Baltimore is only nine points behind Pittsburg for second place. Boston has still a stronger hold on first place, by winning again. Philadelphia and Cincinnati, by winning, both jumped ahead of Brooklyn, while the latter, by losing, dropped from sixth to eighth place. The standing of the other clubs remains unchanged. McGraw's Timely Drive in the Last Inning Won the Game. No more dramatic scene in baseball could be imagined than when McGraw drew yesterday's game out of the fire with his stick. Every play in the long stubborn battle tended to center all in that one effort of the little third baseman. It had been a bull-dog contest all through. Washington had scored with more regularity, but the Champions had replied with savage rallies at the bat, and the score stood six to seven in favor of the Senators at the opening of the last half of the ninth inning. Two men were on bases and two were out. Reitz was on third and Carey on second. They had gotten their start by successive hits and were each advanced a base on a passed ball. The Washington crowd had gone wild over the prospect of besting their time-honored enemies twice in succession, an when little Mac stepped to the plate the four thousand became suddenly very quiet and intensely wrapped in the scene being enacted. Upon the stick work of McGraw depended the game. A good stout hit would yield two runs and the game, while a miscue of any sort would bring grief to the Baltimore end and hilarity to the Washingtonians. The first ball across the plate was a slow out-shoot, at which McGraw bit, and a shout of delight went up from the Washington ranks. Then came two balls in succession, which Mac complaisantly watched skip by, amidst a groan from the Senatorial crowd. A beautiful strike next whizzed across the plate, at which Mac fell down. Every soul of that vast concourse of people was now on the border line of nervous mania, excepting that admirable ball player, who seemed more at ease than ever, and with a nonchalance exceedingly tantalizing to the home crowd that viewed the situation. Then came another ball. With two men out and two strikes and three balls then entire game hinged on the next pitch. It was one of those narrow threads that makes rooters of the most staid people. Mercer realized the importance of his next message across the plate, and took a long time delivering it. First he discolored the ball, and then, taking his position, stood there for about a minute, all the time of which Mac was on the qui vive with his bat, trembling with effort. Suddenly Mercer wheeled about and let fly something with all the symptoms of a fast ball. Whether it was or not will never be told, as Mac landed on the sphere like an electric shock and sent it trolleying down to third. It went by Joyce so fast that it made his hair curl, and then swept by Selbach like many golden opportunities. The fielders did not attempt to capture the ball at all, as with the crack of the stick Reitz and Carey had girded up their loins and made a great dash for the plate, bringing in the game with them. Later, one of the Champions' rooters found the ball in the field, and, after breaking a bottle of wine over it, decorated it with ribbon, saying he would keep it as a souvenir. McGraw was hugged by the other players when he hit the ball, as they were as wildly anxious to win as anybody. (There was much more to the article, but my typing hands are getting tired) Lineups: Orioles McGraw, 3b Keeler, RF Jennings, SS Kelly, LF Brodie, CF Reitz, 2b Carey, 1b Clarke, c Esper, p Gleason, lf (ph?) Hoffer, P Senators Selbach, LF Joyce, 3b Hassamaer, RF Glasscock, SS McGuire, c Cartwright, 1b Crooks, 2b Abbey, CF Mercer, P Score by innings Baltimore 0 0 0 0 2 3 0 1 2 - 8 Washington 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 1 1 - 7 Three-base hits: Selbach Home runs - Kelly Stolen bases - McGraw, Kelly, Keeler, Joyce Sac hits - Jennings, Hassamear, Mercer, Selbach, Crooks Time: 2:20. Umpire - Emslie

There are 2430 games in a regular season. In 2019 202 (8.3%) went to extras, or about 13 per team per year. 15 games went at least 15 innings. About 53 went 12 or more innings. That's roughly 10 a month across MLB, or two per team per season. The median length of a 2019 extra inning game was 226 minutes, or about 3:45. The median length of a 12+ inning game was 4:40. Is all of that too much? That's subjective. Personally, if a game goes much past 10:00 on a week night I'm usually turning it off. Which means I'm probably not seeing any of those extra innings, since on average nine innings takes us to around 10pm.

Why should the fans' opinions not count? Shouldn't their opinions count more than anything else? I'm not asking for a populist direct democracy, where there's a big clamor for something and a week later there's two strikes for an out, or something like that. But if fans complain loudly for years about something I think the people in charge should listen. One of those things is long extra inning games. For years and years the 13th inning of anything but really important games sees the stands empty and the TVs mostly off. Ignoring the people who pay the bills isn't a great business model. Telling the people who pay the bills they're wrong is probably even worse. And "drastically" is in the eyes of the beholder. There are people who think limiting pickoff throws or enforcing the 20-seconds-between-pitches rule is drastic. There are people who think any rules change is too drastic.

If they'd resigned Markakis they'd have gotten about a .750 OPS out of right, just as they did. And LF would have been covered by Pearce, David Lough, De Aza, Delmon, etc. And the results would have been pretty much the same. Except maybe they don't trade Zach Davies for arguably the worst 55 games of Gerardo Parra's 11-year career.

What is the criteria for good? Who gets to decide if it's not the fans? If the fans don't like it they won't buy as many tickets or watch as many commercials, so the owners and the advertisers won't like it. If the owners are getting less revenues the players will get paid less, so they won't like it. Why should a small group of traditionalists be able to overrule the fans, owners and players?

Yea, it would be horrible if baseball changed something because a lot of people like it. Baseball should be telling the fans what they should like and admonishing them for not falling in line. One thing they can do is lessen commercials. And mitigate the revenue impact by charging more for each minute of commercial time. Or having more on-screen or on-field/jersey advertising.

Let's say each team has 250 minor leaguers. A discount rate at the Red Roof is $50/player/day. 60 days. $750k. Plus the costs of testing every other day. I'm sure someone will quibble with those numbers, but that's probably a good part of why they're not doing that. Currently they don't pay anything for minor leaguers' housing.

How can he force a resolution there? He can't force taxpayers to pay for $1B stadiums. I guess he could let them move, and pony up league cash to get them out of leases and other agreements, but the other owners won't want that. I suppose he could go down the ridiculous road Bud did with the Expos, outright sabotaging the franchise in an attempt to get a new stadium funded by the people of Montreal, and then throwing the team into this protracted conflict with the Orioles. And the other owners don't really want expansion, either, because they'll be splitting the national revenues two more ways. Although they might be swayed by two $1B expansion fees.

The All Star game was a great idea back when there was no TV, no interleague play. One game where you could see all the stars, and they treated it like a game, not a contest to see if you could get 33 players into a single 9-inning game. But it went past it's sell-by date a couple decades ago, and baseball being baseball, will stick with it in it's present form all the way to the bitter end. As for the drug situation, that's Bud's biggest problem, although he has others. His fake naiveté is astonishing. He had no problem posing with and cheerleading for Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and the rest of the pro wrestlers while adoring crowds poured money into his coffers. But then when the hard evidence of PED use became too much to deny he was ***stunned*** that these nice boys from Mayberry would ever do such a thing to sully the national pastime, and they all need to be crucified because no one in management ever had the slightest inkling of what was going on. No siree, we assumed Bret Boone turned into Rowdy Roddy Piper because he ate good solid American beef and corn. Of course he wasn't going to return a penny of the $millions he made off of the offensive explosion and pitchers throwing 96 into their 40s. I'm really not sure what Manfred has done that's so damaging. Replay? That was going to happen nevertheless, you can't continue having obviously incorrect calls decide game after game. Talking about pitch clocks and banning the shift without really doing anything? 2nd wildcard? Someone needed to do something about the fact that winning the division had no advantages over winning the wildcard. What are Manfred's cardinal sins that other commishes wouldn't have committed?

A smart GM can tell that your guy is the one who'll be the 0.0001% outlier. That's why he's paid the big bucks. Take the risks, then when it doesn't work we'll just fire you.

Why does professional baseball exist? It's a form of entertainment, that the owners want to make money and gain prestige from. If you have a potential fanbase of millions and just six of them care to watch to the end of a game, is that an effective form of revenue-generating entertainment? Almost everyone has turned off the TV, so advertisers get nothing out of it. The stadium has more paid ushers, vendors, security, etc than fans, so that's a negative. The fans vote with their feet and their remotes, and 99% of them vote no on five-hour, 16-inning games. Who is holding fast to tradition serving if not the fans? I think Manfred is trying to straddle the line between changing things to keep baseball relevant, and trying to placate the older, more conservative fans who make up a majority of the current base. And not often succeeding. But I'm not sure who could do that successfully because there's a natural tension between the fans who want the game (or at least most of the rules or conditions) to be frozen in 1950 or 1970 or 1990, and those who see a number of issues they'd like fixed that require fairly major changes. If he alienates the older fans he'll get excoriated for what he's proposing, and if he defers to them baseball's fanbase will likely continue to shrink.

Holy crap... is this your first post since 2011?

I don't think it's Baltimore fans, I think it's sports fans. Who wants to get attached to a homegrown star, only to trade him a year too early when the team is still good and have him play for some other team? The answer is people who are very concerned with finances. Before free agency trading a guy in his prime was probably less common, because there was no such thing as a walk year*. Nobody would have been happy if Brooks or Cal or Mussina or Palmer or Boog was traded five years into their careers, never mind if we'd gotten a few prospects for them. From a fan's perspective we'd keep everyone we like until they were ready to retire, and they'd gracefully accept lesser roles as they aged. We understand the balance and compromise that (mostly) results from baseball's contractual paradigm, but we don't have to like it. * Yes, there were some people like Branch Rickey who'd trade guys before they declined, regardless of contract.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we're getting traction on ideas to eliminate extra inning games during an era where a nine inning game takes about as long as a 13-inning game from half a century ago. The 1970 Orioles played 10 extra inning games that finished in under 3:00. They played a 13-inning game exactly one year before I was born that finished in 2:49. I could deal with a 13-inning game that was over before 10:00pm. But in September of last year the O's played a nine-inning game that took 4:08. They had a 13-inning game against the Mariners that started on time and wrapped up at about five minutes to midnight. There were probably 122 people left in the stands when Dwight Smith struck out looking to end it.

Obviously Snider didn't work out, but in 2015 the Orioles' RFers had a .767 OPS with -2 fielding runs (by DRS). Markakis had a .746 and -4.

All of them! Because if we don't sign Teixiera Fielder Davis Trumbo Mancini Mountcastle it'll be years, maybe decades, before the O's can find another decent first baseman. Sorry, having a @JTrea81 flashback.

What I was getting at but probably didn't explain adequately was that a lot of prospects from previous eras missed out on what we'd today consider prime development time, just sitting on the bench in the majors. And many of them turned out very well. So I'm not too torn up about Rutschman or other prospects not getting 500 PAs this year.

That was also the game where Joe Adcock hit the ball over the fence in the 13th to break up the no-hitter, but passed Hank Aaron on the bases and only got credit for a double.