The game I grew up with...

[EddeeEddee]

I miss the combo high OBP and high baseball IQ of players like Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn.  And I miss the crazy baserunning of guys like Rickey Henderson and Pete Rose (two very different players I know).  

Maybe these kinds of players are making something of comeback with the likes of Luis Arraez and Mookie Betts. 

Just get us out of the high strikeout rate/high home run rate era.

 

 

  

[Malike]

29 minutes ago, sevastras said:

I forgot you were around back then. 

You didn't have to be around back then to know the history. They weren't really fake, but they were hardly ever to the death. They were slaves owned by companies that were hired to put on a show. They weren't cheap to buy and train. If you think it went down like the movie Gladiator, then you'd probably have been disappointed.

If you are bloodthirsty and want to watch people get maimed and mangled, I'm sure there are some unsanctioned sports you can find in Eastern Europe to scratch that seemingly bizarre itch.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, ExileAngelos said:

How about letting him throw well past 100 pitches if he is still effective and not showing any signs of fatigue?  Crazy, right?  These percentages you have come up with for throwing effort are pure guesses and not remotely quantifiable.   

Just curious, are iou saying Bradish wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue?   Because if that’s your position, I disagree.  

[sevastras]

29 minutes ago, Malike said:

You didn't have to be around back then to know the history. They weren't really fake, but they were hardly ever to the death. They were slaves owned by companies that were hired to put on a show. They weren't cheap to buy and train. If you think it went down like the movie Gladiator, then you'd probably have been disappointed.

If you are bloodthirsty and want to watch people get maimed and mangled, I'm sure there are some unsanctioned sports you can find in Eastern Europe to scratch that seemingly bizarre itch.

Great, I’m heading to the Balkans in a few days anyway. 
Im not saying I enjoy cock fights or dog fights, I am just saying I enjoy the collisions. I don’t want either guy to get hurt any more than, that sucked and am going to feel that in the morning. I thought it was great when they came in hard to second and the double play wasn’t automatic. Now you have the ghost tag of the base and the runner just jogs out of the way. I guess it is hard to explain but it is the difference of the NBA 30 years ago and now. Or NFL or MLB. 

[Hallas]

3 hours ago, baltfan said:

This.  Verlander is the only modern guy I can think of that paced himself.  He would often be throwing low 90s early and high 90s late.  Sabathia paced himself a bit too. But these guys are very much the exceptions. 

Does Randy Johnson count as a modern guy?  He threw the most nonchalant 97 I've ever seen.  And he threw an inning of relief the day after starting and throwing 104 pitches to help win game 7.

[Safelykept]

2 hours ago, EddeeEddee said:

I miss the combo high OBP and high baseball IQ of players like Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn.  And I miss the crazy baserunning of guys like Rickey Henderson and Pete Rose (two very different players I know).  

Maybe these kinds of players are making something of comeback with the likes of Luis Arraez and Mookie Betts. 

Just get us out of the high strikeout rate/high home run rate era.

 

 

  

miss the combo high OBP and high baseball IQ of players like Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn. not to compare a certain Oriole To The OBP of Gwynn or Carew, But I always loved Ken Singleton and to this day still think he is the most underrated Oriole.

[ExileAngelos]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Just curious, are iou saying Bradish wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue?   Because if that’s your position, I disagree.  

I wasn't referring to Bradish at all, I was talking about how pitchers are treated in the modern game.  

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, ExileAngelos said:

I wasn't referring to Bradish at all, I was talking about how pitchers are treated in the modern game.  

Well, I definitely miss the disappearance of the complete game and longer starts in general.  

[forphase1]

7 hours ago, sevastras said:

Great, I’m heading to the Balkans in a few days anyway. 
Im not saying I enjoy cock fights or dog fights, I am just saying I enjoy the collisions. I don’t want either guy to get hurt any more than, that sucked and am going to feel that in the morning. I thought it was great when they came in hard to second and the double play wasn’t automatic. Now you have the ghost tag of the base and the runner just jogs out of the way. I guess it is hard to explain but it is the difference of the NBA 30 years ago and now. Or NFL or MLB. 

I agree with you.   Whether you are talking football and all the targeting or baseball with largely contactless plays at the plate,  some of the exciting events/plays have been removed.  I understand why,  and I'm not saying it should or shouldn't have changed,  but I overall enjoy both sports a bit less due to the changes.  Big hits/collisions are exciting, and removing a exciting part of the game and replacing them with a less exciting alternative lessens my enjoyment overall.  If wanting my entertainment to be as entertaining as possible makes me a blood thirsty monster, then so be it.   

It's funny this was all brought up.  Me and 2 of my sons,  aged 15 and 12, were watching the 'interference' game the other day against Chicago and that brought up questions about contact in baseball and the rules.   We ended up watching some YouTube videos with big plays at the plate including the Posey injury play.  They both stated that while such plays certainly made the play at the plate more potentially interesting,  they understood why the change happened.  Player safety did,  and probably should, have made this change needed.   But while the game gained some due to players being healthier and available to play,  it also lost a bit of the potential excitement on said plays.  The get off my lawn man in me misses them,  and honestly would love to see them return.  Never going to happen though of course. 

[Gurgi]

I miss girls in mini skirts and lava lamps and weed that makes me laugh instead of putting me completely out.

I miss Memorial Stadium and Wild Bill and I miss being young and strong enough to walk up all the ramps to the upper deck to sit near Wild Bill.  

[Camden_yardbird]

I would refute one of the OP takes that bat control doesn't exist anymore.  The bat control OP is talking about may have fallen off, though I would point that those players still exist, see Arraez and Kwan.  But players have taken bat control to the next level, in that they now create swing planes to control launch angles, and make adjustments to the field they are hitting to, or to squeeze Evo out of the swing.  This stuff surely happened back in the day, they just didn't have statcast data to back it up. But the level of bat control and swing shaping now is beyond next level.

[foxfield]

The game has changed. The Orioles are never going to have 4 20 game winners again, but British anyone else. 
 

You cannot expect managers to manage against things they know now with analytics. And if it bothers you, you only have Earl Weaver to blame. 

[DrungoHazewood]

On 5/27/2024 at 8:29 PM, ExileAngelos said:

How about letting him throw well past 100 pitches if he is still effective and not showing any signs of fatigue?  Crazy, right?  These percentages you have come up with for throwing effort are pure guesses and not remotely quantifiable.   

Show me a pitcher today, throwing how pitchers today throw, who gets to 110 pitches and is just cruising with no fatigue. Back it off, throw in the 80s on an arm that could hit 98, and put four guys in every lineup who really can't hit at all and you might have a strategy that works. Otherwise you're just creating work for surgeons. 

Pitchers have always gotten hurt, even back when nobody cared about pitch counts and pitchers knew they couldn't throw every pitch like it was their last. The '61 Orioles won 95 games with four starters aged 23 or younger who all threw at least 177 innings. Steve Barber was hurt off and on the rest of his career, described in Ball Four a having an arm held together with chewing gum and bailing wire.  Chuck Estrada's career was effectively over at 25. Jack Fisher's best year was at 21. Only Milt Pappas survived relatively unscathed.

[FlipTheBird]

On 5/27/2024 at 6:18 PM, sevastras said:

NFL can’t even hit each other anymore. Clean hits that are brutal are now flagged even though they are perfectly clean. I don’t know, maybe I would be one for the coliseum during the height of Rome. 

Watch UFC if people beating each other up is what gets your rocks off. 

[Orioles West]

I have found things I miss about the game I grew with — as others have mentioned (complete games, complete game shut outs, etc).

I have found a lot to like about the modern game.

There is one thing I think batters from my youth (60’s, 70’s, 80’s) seemed better at beating the shift. There were some shifts from time to time, but I recall more batters being able to bunt or go the other way.