World Series: Dodgers / Yankees

The 120th World Series begins tonight in Los Angeles.

It will be the 12th time the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees have met in the fall classic. An average of once per decade. In reality, it's been 43* years since the two teams clashed in October, and half of those meetings occurred in a 10-year mid-20th century span. Yes, from 1947-1956, the Bums and Bombers battled six times -- back in the good old days, when the sport enjoyed a robust competitive balance that no longer exists.

*: RIP Fernando Valenzuela (1960-2024).

ESPN has a big preview with predictions of how everything will shake out. The pick of who will bring home the Piece of Metal™ was split 7-7:

Yankees in 7 (5 votes)
Dodgers in 7 (4 votes)
Dodgers in 6 (3 votes)
Yankees in 6 (2 votes)

A lot of simulations were run to arrive at these %s:

Dodgers: 52.2%
Dodgers in 4     6.7%
Dodgers in 5    11.8%
Dodgers in 6    16.8%
Dodgers in 7    17.0%

Yankees: 47.8%
Yankees in 4     6.2%
Yankees in 5    13.6%
Yankees in 6    13.8%
Yankees in 7    14.2%

This World Series will also be mascot-free, as the Yankees and Dodgers are the only two major league teams without a mascot -- although the Yankees had one for a while and his name was "Dandy". (I suppose the Fox announcers do not strictly qualify as NYY mascots.)

Dave "That's The Most-Famous-Stolen-Base-Stealing Motherfuckin Dave Roberts" Roberts insisted there is no possibility Shohei Ohtani will pitch in this series. Which means . . . I'm looking forward to watching him crank five dongs in Game 7, then take the mound, and slam the door on those MFY fuckers. Hey, what if he does it Satchel Paige-style, ordering his infielders and outfielders back to the dugout before striking out the side? Well, if he did all that, he would have to kick Manfred's ass during the trophy ceremony and assume the role of commissioner himself. . . . Ah, dreams . . .

The Hater's Guide to the 2024 World Series

Grant Brisbee, The Athletic, October 23, 2024 (my emphasis)

This isn't clickbait. This is engagement bait. This is subscription bait. This is "sign up for auto-renew, then get you hooked on Wordle and NYT Cooking" bait. But it's also a deeper truth that resonates with a lot of baseball fans, and it goes something like this:

New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Dodgers is the most annoying World Series matchup possible. It might be the most annoying World Series matchup ever, which seems hyperbolic until you start looking at previous matchups and realizing most of them didn't have the full force of social media or the Pundit Industrial Complex behind them. . . .

Please note that this isn't the same as the worst World Series matchup possible. . . . In the actual 2024 World Series, there will be several future Hall of Famers playing, most of them in their absolute prime, doing unreal things to and with baseballs. It's a very good World Series if you like to watch excellent players and displays of baseball ability. I'm actually excited to watch the baseball part of it, and you should be too.

That doesn't mean it won't be annoying, though. Let us count the ways. Haters, gather around. We have some hating to do. . . .

Every October, I warm my heart by thinking about Fox executives who lie awake at night, worrying about a Cleveland Guardians and Milwaukee Brewers World Series. These chuzzlewits and pecksniffs aren't thinking about the excitement a pennant would bring to the areas that haven't enjoyed enough of them (or any of them at all). They're not thinking about specific matchups and baseball-related quirks. They're thinking about eyeballs and star power. . . . This is how they make their money:

They make money from eroding your sanity. Their homes are built, brick by brick, from the ashes of your grey matter. They wanted Yankees vs. Dodgers because it would mean they could tell more people that they can have the kind of wi-fi that lets them take ventriloquism classes in their attic, where there was previously a dead spot. . . .

Sometimes I'll be falling asleep and think about "His father is the district attorney" out of nowhere. That's a piece of my brain cracking off and floating away, like a calving ice shelf, never to be the same again. Someone has to pay. Preferably, these someones would pay by getting every Guardians vs. Brewers World Series possible.

Both of these franchises stare at themselves in the mirror when no one's looking. They also do it when everyone's looking. . . . They insist upon themselves. They think they're better than you and your team. And, sure, by getting to the World Series, that's technically true, but they don't have to insist upon themselves so danged hard all the time. . . .

Yes, the Yankees and Dodgers have more resources than every other team. They spend more money. They're spoiled and so are their fans. They have advantages that other teams don't have with more visibility, cultural cachet, history and purchasing power. . . .

But that's letting the other owners off the hook. Mookie Betts is on the Dodgers because Fenway Sports Group Holdings LLC worried about how his salary would affect their abilities to add players to Liverpool and drivers to RFK Racing. They made a business decision, and they absolutely deserve to feel bad about it. . . .

But even though it has the potential to be the best World Series, it's guaranteed to be the most annoying World Series possible. The wrong people have wanted it for years. The team that wins will throw the trophy in an arrogance juicer and get a fresh glass, even though they weren't really running low. The losing team will feel even more entitled at this time next year. And at every moment, before every inning, with every joke and comment on the pre- and post-game show, you will be told just how special this all is.

Guardians in six. They have the bullpen, even if the Brewers' lineup is underrated. What a beautiful, simple and boring dream that would have been.

Reminder: A World Series on mute is an enjoyable World Series.

JoS Prediction: Dodgers in 6.

Or 7. Or 5. Or 4. Or 3. Or 8. Or 17. I don't give a fuck.
YED 2024 must not go all Great Pumpkin on us.
No.
No.
NO!

"He's Got A Gun In Right Field" (An Actual Gun)

From the SABR biography of William "Farmer" Weaver (1865-1943), written by Janice Johnson:

Weaver was a nineteenth-century player whose major league years occurred between 1888 and 1894. During that time, he registered a career batting average of .278 and produced 344 RBIs in 753 games, most of which he started as an outfielder for the Louisville Colonels.

At the plate, Weaver was a switch-hitter who exercised fine bat control and had a flair for timely hitting. In the outfield, he defended his territory with skill and finesse, and made the occasional eye-popping play. He brought added value with his versatility as a backup catcher, his heady base running, and his general baseball smarts.

In the view of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Weaver was "a good ball player—not a star, but a good, all-around man, better than the majority in the big League…" He laid claim to one truly exceptional major league achievement, one that was probably underappreciated at the time: he went six-for-six in a regulation game while hitting for the cycle. The six-hit/cycle combination is a feat so rare that not a single major leaguer accomplished it during the entire twentieth century.

Over nearly three decades, Weaver played the game at all levels and tried every role that the sport offered up to him—player, field captain, manager, promoter, scout and umpire—albeit briefly in some cases. Personal failings unrelated to baseball produced the most riveting chapter in his life story, however. In the fall of 1911, Weaver's world imploded in stunning fashion. For years, he had carried a dark secret. When finally exposed, its serious nature brought humiliation, shame, and worse. In quick succession, he became a fugitive, a convicted felon, a prison inmate. . . . 

Weaver married at the age of 18, taking as his wife the very young Dora Dove Dye. She was fourteen years old, fifteen at the most, when they wed in Parkersburg in the fall of 1883. Soon thereafter, the couple followed the lead of Dora’s family in migrating west, to Kansas. . . .

Weaver started his baseball career circa 1885 by joining Olathe's barnstorming town team as a catcher. He soon graduated to the professional ranks, playing in 1886 with the Topeka Capitals of the Western League. In 1887, he signed with the Wellington Browns of the independent Kansas State League, and then with the Wichita Braves of the Western League. On these early teams, Weaver often alternated between catching and roaming the outfield. . . .

By early September 1888, at least three major league teams—Louisville, Cleveland, and Kansas City—had shown an interest in acquiring Weaver. Louisville, of the American Association, was the successful suitor. . . . Weaver had signed with a team soon to leave its mark on history. With a 27-111 record, the 1889 Colonels became the first major league team to record 100 losses. Their defeat-riddled season reached its nadir with 26 consecutive losses, a major league record. . . .

Weaver had a career day in Louisville on August 12, 1890 when the Colonels defeated the Syracuse Stars, 18-4. He completely owned Ezra Lincoln and Ed Mars, the Syracuse pitchers, by hitting them for the cycle in a 6-for-6 outing. His base total for the day was 14, which he reached by hammering out two singles, one double, two triples, and one home run. He scored three runs, and had one stolen base. . . . [It would be 119 years before another major league player matched Weaver. On April 15, 2009, Ian Kinsler went 6-for-6, with two singles, two doubles, triple, home run, five runs scored, four RBI, and a stolen base.]

Weaver's most accomplished season as a fielder came in 1891. In his book Baseball Pioneers, Charles Faber rated Weaver as the American Association's leading outfielder that year. Although some variance exists among sources regarding the 1891 statistics, the 1990 Elias Baseball Analyst reports that Weaver led the league in fielding percentage, putouts, and assists in 1891, a feat not repeated by an outfielder until Gerald Young of Houston did it in 1989.

Two unusual events occurred in 1893, both of which would be unheard of today. On July 4, in a game against Washington, Weaver celebrated the holiday with his own fireworks. He took his post in right field armed not only with his glove, but also with a pistol. When a high fly headed his direction, he fired at the ball as it arced downward, emptying the gun's cylinder. He missed his mark, dropped the gun, then fielded the ball with his glove. He "created a sensation" among the Louisville fans, and must have enjoyed doing it. Two years later on the Fourth of July, he repeated the antic in a minor league game in Kansas City. . . .

This bio also includes a "Chicken Wolf" sighting!

Question of the Day: Is emptying a loaded pistol at a fly ball and then recording the out more amazing than high-fiving a fan while turning a double play? If Weaver had actually shot the ball before catching it, perhaps, but his inferior skill as a marksman inclines me to say . . . No.

[Draft post, January 31, 2020]

Schadenfreude 342 (A Continuing Series)Schadenfreude Time Machine: June 17-19, 1977

Red Sox pitchers Nick Pivetta and James Paxton were credited with the wins in consecutive games against the Athletics on July 7 and 8.

Pivetta and Paxton – both born in the Canadian province of British Columbia (Pivetta in Victoria, Paxton in Ladner) – were the first Canadians to win consecutive games for the Red Sox since Reggie Cleveland and Fergie Jenkins, way back on June 18-19, 1977 against the Yankees.

Pivetta pitched the middle five innings of Boston's 7-3 win on Friday, July 7. Paxton started and went six innings the next day, as the Red Sox romped 10-3.

Cleveland (born Swift Current, Saskatchewan*) and Jenkins (born Chatham, Ontario) did their thing during one of the Red Sox's all-time greatest series against the Yankees. (Also: Pivetta's 413.2 innings are the most by a Canadian-born Red Sox pitcher since Cleveland's 752.2 innings 1974-78.)

Let's go back to that mid-June 1977 series.

*: Your correspondent was 13 years old; summer vacation had just begun and he would start high school in the fall. And 28 years later, he would find himself spending the night in Swift Current as part of cross-country drive to resettle on the west coast of Canada.

Bill Lee faced the Brownshirts in the first game, Friday night, June 17. Catfish Hunter was the Yankees' starter – for maybe 15-20 minutes. Rick Burleson led off the bottom of the first with a home run into the screen atop the left field wall. Fred Lynn followed with a home run deep into the  right-field bleachers. Hunter got two outs, but he wouldn't get the third. Carlton Fisk crushed a home run over everything in left. George Scott also crushed a home run over everything in left. Hunter was then sent to the showers  after throwing only 29 pitches (did he even break a sweat?), forced to walk off the field as the jeers of more than 34,000 Red Sox fans throbbed in his ears.

New York tied the game 4-4 in the third inning, but Boston got single runs in the fifth and sixth, and Yaz and Fisk went deep in the seventh. The Red Sox won 9-4, as Mickey Rivers of the Yankees donned a batting helmet in center field as protection from the flying chunks of metal and glass coming out of the bleachers. Ahhh, the '70s!

Cleveland started on Saturday afternoon, June 18. (I am not sure if all three games were on TV, but I know this one was.) The crowd at Fenway was reportedly the largest in 20 years; the temperature was 90 degrees. The Yankees got two runs in the first, but Yaz clubbed a three-run dong off Mike Torrez in the bottom half to give Boston a 3-2 lead. After a walk, single, and an error, Torrez got a double play to avoid further damage.

Things remained quiet until the fourth. Bernie Carbo homered. Butch Hobson singled and Denny Doyle tripled. After Doyle scored on Lynn's sac fly, Rice was HBP and Yaz singled, but Torrez again escaped additional trouble.

Carbo homered again in the fifth and Scott went deep to center off Sparky Lyle in the seventh (his MLB-best 17th of the year), but it was the inning in between that was the most interesting.

With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Lynn singled and Rice broke his bat on a hit into right field. Reggie Jackson was extremely slow to charge the ball (something the Yankee announcers said was a common practice that year). Rice hustled into second for a double with Lynn advancing to third. New York manager Billy Martin was furious. Suddenly, Paul Blair was jogging out to right field. Reggie was confused, then realized Martin was publicly embarrassing him – and on national television – by pulling him from the game mid-inning. When Reggie got to the dugout, he opened his arms, as if to say, "What did I do?" It was a scene famously echoed many years later by Alex Rodriguez, standing at second base, in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. It was an open question whether Martin or Jackson (or both) might begin throwing punches. It was fucking awesome.

Yaz hit another homer in the eighth. Final score: Red Sox 10-4.

Reggie had been "a center of friction" on the team for weeks, refusing to shake his teammates' hands after hitting a key home run in May and dealing with the turmoil from an interview in Sport magazine in which he said "derogatory things" about Thurman Munson, asserting that of all the good players on the Yankees, he was "the straw that stirred the drink" (which remains, quite honestly, an amazing quote).

Jackson screamed at Martin in the dugout: "You never liked me." . . . And later was sipping white wine.

That night he spoke privately to a reporter (reportedly, "every other word [was] an expletive" in the original (where's the tape?)):

It makes me cry, the way they treat me on this team. The Yankee pinstripes are Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle. I'm just a black man to them who doesn't know how to be subservient. I'm a big black man with an IQ of 160 making $700,000 a year and they treat me like dirt. They've never had anyone like me on their team before.

Reggie was very determined never to miss an opportunity to tout his (alleged) high intelligence or his salary. When told Reggie had an IQ of 160, Mickey Rivers said: "Out of what, a thousand? He can't even spell IQ."

Jenkins got the ball on Sunday, June 19, and pitched a complete game, allowing only three hits and one unearned run. Boston toyed with starter Ed Figueroa (13 baserunners in 4.1 innings) and reliever Dick Tidrow, who allowed four hits (all home runs) in two innings. (Yankees radio broadcast)

The Red Sox did not score in the first two innings – the Yankeed actually led 1-0! – but they got runs in every inning afterwards. Diminutive Denny Doyle donged in the fourth for three runs, part of Boston's busy inning that included three hits, three walks, a stolen base, and a Reggie error! (SI: "When Doyle returned to the dugout, Yaz refused to shake his hand, saying, 'Are you kidding?'")

The Red Sox led 7-1 when they closed out the three-game whipping by taking batting practice against Tidrow. Carbo homered in the seventh and Rice, Yaz, and Scott hit bombs in the eighth, for an 11-1 win.

The Red Sox set a major league record with 16 home runs in a three-game series. Then they went to Baltimore and swept four games from the Orioles, hitting nine more home runs and outscoring the Birds 25-7. It was part of a 10-game stretch (June 14-24) in which they hit a record 33 dongs. (That was also a record.) They slugged .638 and had a team OPS of 1.008. 

BOOM!

Jim Rice told Sports Illustrated:

We've got this standard routine in the dugout now . . . When a guy comes in after a homer, someone will ask him, "Hey, man, you get it all?" The answer's always, "Nope."

Not long after, on July 4, the Red Sox hit eight home runs in a span of four innings against the Blue Jays (then in their first season). The last seven blasts were solo shots.

5th: Scott
6th: Lynn
7th: Hobson, Carbo
8th: Lynn, Rice, Yaz, Scott

I would have devoured a book about the 1977 Red Sox – my second-favourite team, after 2004.

Buster Keaton: The Cameraman (Yankee Stadium, 1928)

Buster Keaton shows off his baseball moves in an empty Yankee Stadium in the summer of 1928. Keaton's pantomime on the mound is impressive and he hustles around the bases (he was 32 at the time). The distance to the wall in left-center – beyond the flagpole, seen when Keaton enters – was 490 feet from the plate.

This clip is from "The Cameraman", a silent romantic comedy film, starring Buster Keaton and Marceline Day. Day died at age 91 in 2000 (so she was 20 when she made this film). I'm sure she was not the only silent film star to live into the 2000s, but silent movies and any year beginning with a 2 seem like they should be distinct and separate worlds.

The Cameraman was at one point considered a lost film, destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire. However, a complete print was discovered in Paris in 1968. Another print, of much higher quality, although missing some footage, was discovered in 1991.

The complete film can be seen here. The baseball clip begins at 15:53.

The New York Times, September 17, 1928:

Analytics – Ruining Baseball Since . . . 1897

Players Rank Not Always Shown By His Fielding Average
The Ground He Covers and the Balls He Shirks Not Recorded

It always has been maintained that fielding averages are misleading in the estimate of the real abilities of players. That a player, for example, who leads the league at second base, according to the figures compiled by Mr. [Nick] Young [National League president] every fall, does so because he is a cautious player, who does not take the chances that other men in the position go after and who in doing so make errors that may put them far down in the list in the so-called "averages." On this account many close critics always watch the totals of chances recorded opposite each player's name and attach more importance to that column than they do to the "percentage of chances accepted," which is supposed to determine the rank of the player.

. . . In order to give some estimate of the work of the National League players in this particular, the Chicago Tribune has compiled a table of percentage of chances to the game accepted by players [chances per game] the last season, in accordance with the official figures given out by President Young. The worst defect about the table will be the fact that no allowance can be made for instances where players have participated in only part of a game.

The Sporting News, November 20, 1897

When We Get Rid Of "Competitive Imbalance", Every Team Will Finish .500 (Yay!)

Major League Baseball wants its fans to believe in parity, that every team begins the season with a chance to win the World Series. The ever-expanding playoffs help promote that belief; 12 teams will make the postseason this year — three division winners and three wild-card teams in each league. More teams in contention late into the season might provide the illusion of competitive balance.

But careful observers — including players — know only a handful of teams are competing for championships and that some, by lagging far behind in payroll, are virtually eliminating themselves from contention before the season begins.

That's how Washington Post sportswriter Neil Greenberg begins his April 1 article headlined: "Baseball's Competitive Balance Problem Is Getting Worse".

Articles like this are far from rare. Sportswriters bemoan the state of the modern game: Teams that "spend lavishly on payroll" are "the teams likely to compete for the World Series title". And "small-market clubs" (the definition of which changes depending on who is making the argument) cannot keep up and now "the gap between them and their free-spending counterparts is wider than ever".

Yes, well, when has that not been the case? Has there ever been a season in which teams with more money and a willingness to spend it are less likely to improve? Forget about baseball. Apply that to life. Does someone with a lot of money have more options that someone with no money? (Could I have typed out a dumber, more obvious, question?)

Greenberg has various factoids showing how "competitive imbalance" in baseball is bad (and getting worse):

The gap between the highest and lowest spenders in MLB is more than double that of the NBA and more than triple that of the NHL and NFL. Each of those other leagues uses a salary cap (and a cap floor) to encourage parity. . . .

Since the Florida Marlins won the 2003 World Series with a payroll that ranked 25th in the majors, every subsequent champion has ranked 18th or higher, with 11 of the past 18 winners spending enough to land in the top 10. Over the past five seasons, the World Series champions have ranked 11th, second, seventh, first and 17th. . . .

Last season, the teams in the top half of MLB payroll averaged 87 wins; the bottom half averaged 75. Eight playoff teams [out of 10] emerged from the top half . . .

So seven of the last 18 World Series winners (almost 40%) has had a payroll no higher than 11th? That's actually pretty impressive.

Greenberg closes with this: "It won't be hard to figure out which teams are in contention — and which are out of it — before the first pitch of Opening Day."

You don't have to be what Greenberg calls a "careful observer" to know "only a handful of teams are competing for championships" while some clubs are "virtually eliminat[ed] . . . before the season begins". (I mean, is anyone putting money on the Orioles to win the World Series?)

Again, how does this situation differ from every other season in major league history?

There was a stretch of 39 years (1926-1964) when the Yankees finished lower than third place in the American League only once. A fan of a rival team could have just become a teenager (13) when that streak started and be a grandfather (52) when it ended. Christ, those fuckers won 14 pennants (and nine championships) in a 16-season period (1949-64).

On the other side of the slate, the Athletics finished in the top half of the AL (what was called "the first division") twice in 35 years (1934-68); both times, they were 4th in the eight-team AL, still not exactly in contention.

Starting in 1922, the Red Sox finished (again, among eight teams) 8th, 8th, 7th, 8th, 8th, 8th, 8th, 8th, 8th, 6th, 8th. How many people do you think considered them a serious contender in 1933? Hopefully, not too many, because they finished 7th.

So exactly when was this time of competitive balance that Greenberg et al. want to go back to?

Before every single season, you can point to many teams that clearly have no chance of being in contention. If all teams had an equal shot in 2022, you'd see as many people picking the Diamondbacks to win the NL West as the Dodgers.

Major League Baseball is far from perfect. It has always suffered from myriad problems and imperfections (many of them self-inflicted). Some "small-market" clubs are in that category solely because their extremely wealthy owners refuse to put money into their teams, not because of any geographical or population reasons.

But the people wishing the sport could go back to an earlier period in which competitive balance did not exist (or was not such a glaring issue) are like the people who long for a leader to make America great again, who believe the country would thrive if it got back to the "good old days". It's a fantasy. Those days never existed.

Not Playing The Game The Right Way: Pace Of Play & Long At-Bats In The 1860s

In A Game Of Inches: The Stories Behind The Innovations That Shaped Baseball: The Game On The Field, Peter Morris uncovers the first examples (or first known examples) of numerous baseball customs and their developments, most of them (obviously) from the 19th Century. (Morris has written or co-written eight other baseball books.)

The Game On the Field's Table of Contents runs for more than 13 pages and includes 406 subsections. A sampling: catchers signaling to pitchers, home team batting last, choking up, bunts, getting deliberately hit by pitches, swinging multiple bats in the on-deck circle, windups, change of pace, knuckleball, getting batters to chase, keeping a book on hitters, stretches by first basemen, left-handed outfielders, catching from a crouch, infield depth, cutoff and replay plays, basket catches, hidden-ball trick, 3-6-3 double play, delayed double steals, fake to third throw to first pickoffs, pitchouts, hit-and-run, double switches, platooning, intentional walks, don't give him anything to hit on 0-2, first-base coaches, verbal and physical abuse of umpires, appeals on check swings, ball and strike signals, last gloveless player, gloves being left on the field, catchers' masks and shin guards, batting gloves, uniformity of uniforms, and calling time.

Here's one amusing entry (my emphasis):

1.10 Balls and Strikes. As a result of the pitcher's limited role in very early baseball [a "feeder" tossing the ball to the batter, though some pitchers were soon sending the ball in "with exceeding velocity"], batsmen accumulated no balls while strikes were recorded only on a swing and a miss. The premise was that each batter got to strike the ball once and that the pitch was the prelude to the fundamental conflict: the batter's effort to make his way home before the fielders could put him out.

This changed forever when pitchers began to enlarge their role. As noted in the previous entry [1.9 Pitchers Trying to Retire Batters], pitchers were using speedy pitching and spinning their pitches as early as 1856. Other pitchers hit upon the simpler and maddeningly effective approach of deliberately throwing wide pitches to tempt batters to swing at pitches that were difficult to hit squarely. Not only was no skill required for this tactic, but there was also no penalty in the game's rules.

Batters retaliated by playing what was known as the "waiting game" and not swinging at all. This earned them rebukes from journals like the New York Clipper, which wrote in 1861: "Squires was active on the field, but in batting he has a habit of waiting at the bat which is tedious and useless" (New York Clipper, August 14, 1861). Two years later the Clipper added, "The Nassaus did not adopt the 'waiting game' style of play in this match as they did in the Excelsior game. We would suggest to them to repudiate it altogether, leaving such style of play to those clubs who prefer 'playing the points,' as it is called, instead of doing 'the fair and square thing' with their opponents" (New York Clipper, October 31, 1863).

But these were appeals to the gentlemanly spirit, and that spirit was giving way to competitive fervor. While the rules had allowed umpires to call strikes since 1858, few did so, and players were increasingly taking the view that any tactic they could get away with was acceptable.

The result was gridlock. Bob Ferguson recalled in an 1884 interview that "a pitcher had the perogative of sending as many balls as he wanted to across the plate until the batsman made up his mind to strike at one. In an ordinary game, forty, fifty and sixty balls were considered nothing for a pitcher before the batsman got suited" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 10, 1884). Ferguson wasn't exaggerating.

Writing in 1893, Henry Chadwick described the first game of the Atlantics of Brooklyn in 1855: "It will be seen that it took the players over 2 hours to play three innings [2:45], so great was the number of balls the pitcher had to deliver to the bat before the batsman was suited (Sporting Life, October 28, 1893). Baseball historian William J. Ryczek reported that the third game of an 1860 series between the Atlantics and Excelsiors saw Jim Creighton deliver 331 pitches and Mattie O'Brien throw 334 pitches in three innings. Ryczek also cited a tightly contested game on August 3, 1863, in which Atlantics pitcher Al Smith threw 68 pitches to Billy McKeever of the Mutuals in a single at bat (William J. Ryczek, When Johnny Came Sliding Home, 45).

This presented a grave dilemma for the game's rule makers. The pitcher was not supposed to have such a large role, so almost everyone agreed that something must be done to effect "the transfer of the interest of a match from the pitcher to the basemen and outerfielders" (New York Clipper, May 7, 1864). . . . [T]hey attempted to address the problem with a series of tweaks.

In 1864 the concept of called balls and called strikes was added to the rulebook along with a warning system by which the count began only when the umpire decided that either the pitcher or the batter was deliberately stalling. . . .

The umpire thus had a great deal of discretion and, if he believed that the pitcher was trying to pitch fairly, the pitcher could "send a score or more unfair balls over the base before the umpire picked out the three bad ones" (John H. Gruber, "Bases on Balls," Sporting News, January 20, 1916).

This was an imaginative approach, similar to a parent threatening a child with punishment while at the same time explaining that it can be averted if the child just goes back to playing appropriately. Unfortunately this carrot-and-stick approach led only to more creative efforts to grab the carrot while avoiding the stick. . . .

Making the umpire responsible for making such subjective determinations put him in an untenable position. A typical example took place in a July 20, 1868, match in which the Detroit Base Ball Club hosted the Buckeye Club of Cincinnati. When the umpire did not appear, that role was filled by Bob Anderson, a highly respectable citizen who around 1859 had helped found the Detroit Base Ball Club. Steeped in the gentlemanly tradition, Anderson occasionally called balls but never strikes. The visiting players took advantage of this by standing at the plate for up to fifteen minutes before swinging at a pitch. As a result, darkness fell with only seven innings having been played. Most of the crowd had departed long before than.

A match in Rochester, New York, on August 9, 1869, saw the umpire similarly allow a tedious number of pitches to pass without issuing a warning. One spectator became so exasperated that he finally read the rules aloud to the umpire (Rochester Evening Express, August 10, 1869). . . .

It thus became clear that the warning system had failed to accomplish its purpose, and there was a gradual acceptance that the increase in the pitcher's role was permanent. . . .

The rules were modified several times between 1867 and 1875 in hopes of finding a more satisfactory system. In 1875 the rule was again changed ["when nine balls have been called, the striker shall take first base"] . . . Beginning in 1879, each pitch had to be declared a ball or a strike except for a two-strike warning pitch. Since 1881 the umpires has been obliged to call every pitch one way or the other.

The number of balls and strikes allowed changed frequently over the next decade as rule makers sought the ideal balance between hitters and pitchers. Further confusing matters was a peculiar rule that a batter could be thrown out after a base on balls if he walked to first base instead of running. (John H. Gruber, "Bases on Balls," Sporting News, January 20, 1916). (This explains why they were not known as walks until later!)

In 1889, three strikes and four balls were finally settled upon as the parameters for an at bat. And it was not until the early twentieth century that fouls began to count as strikes, a rule change that will be discussed under "Deliberate Fouls," (2.3.2).

"In The Place Of These Glorious Scenes [Of One Of The Old-Time Seasons],What Have We Now? Money, Money, Money!"

Just think of one of the old-time seasons, when the coming encounter of two of the crack nines of the principal clubs who met at the Elysian Fields was a topic in the city as general as was any important subject affecting the politics of the country. Then the meetings, too. The crowd used to get over early to get good places, and considerable fun used to be had in getting the field cleared for play. Then came the contest, with its earnest work to win, and the exciting scenes in critical emergencies. And after the battle was over, there came the gathering of the contestants, with "Three cheers for the Eagles!" "Now, then, three rousers for the Gothams!" "Altogether for the umpire, boys!" with a tiger. And then came the adjournment to the club rooms, where good cheer and hospitality prevailed, and kindly greetings marked the intercourse of the rival clubs.

In the place of these glorious scenes, what have we now? Money, money, money! Service sought for dollars and cents! A gather of gamblers whose blasphemy and obscenity is copied by the outside crowd of juvenile roughs, until the atmosphere of a ball ground becomes foul with vile language. Then, too, the various phases of latter-day professionalism, with the fraud-tempting pool-selling and the bought-and-sold "exhibition" games–what a contrast does this present to the glorious days of ten short years ago!

New York Sunday Mercury, February 9, 1873

After Arrest For Battering An Umpire, Player Given Choice Of Jail Or Fine

Timothy Flood, a second baseman for the 1899 St. Louis Perfectos and the 1902-03 Brooklyn Superbas, was arrested on November 19, 1905 for assaulting an umpire.

The "belligerant" player was given the choice of three days in jail or a "nominal" fine of $5.00. His friends in the courtroom quickly paid the five clams.

h/t @BaseballandLaw

If you are wondering how Flood was playing baseball in mid-November, he was a member of the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. The six PCL teams played between 204 and 225 games that season. The Angels finished in first place with a 120-94 record. (In 1906, the Fresno team was known as the Raisin Eaters!)

1904 New England League Triple Play Involved All Nine Fielders

On August 23, 1904, the visiting Manchester Textiles of the New England League turned a triple play against the New Bedford Whalers, in which all nine fielders took part. The above recap does not mention the inning in which the triple play was turned.

With [Fred] Valdois on third and [Buster] Burrill on second, [Win] Clark hit a grounder to [Billy] Page at shortstop. Valdois was run down between third and home, Page, [third baseman Wally] Warren, [catcher Henry] Cote and [pitcher Bill] Leith handling the ball, and Warren made the putout. While Valdois was dancing back and forth Burrill went to third and back to second and finally was put out at third base by Warren after the ball had been handled at second base by [left fielder Harry] Armbruster, [center fielder Archie] Graham and [second baseman Wally] Taylor, and Clark was the third out trying to get back to first base, [first baseman Charles] Chapman making an assist in this play, and [right fielder Frank] Morrissey having the putout.

The box score lists the fielders involved as 6-5-2-1-4-3-8-7-9, but since the recap credits the third baseman with recording the first two outs, he obviously handled the ball more than once. My first guess was that the box score mentioned the players involved in the play in the order they first handled the ball. However, it seems more likely that the play began 6-2-5 rather than 6-5-2.

Following the recap, I could imagine the play going (at a minimum): 6-2-5-2-1-5-7-8-5-4-5-3-9. It's impossible to know without reading another account of the game. The clip above is from the Fall River Daily Evening News of August 24. I looked at the Fall River Globe and Boston Globe, but those papers, while they mentioned the triple play, did not include a description. Some baseball tidbits in the Daily Evening News were cited as coming from the New Bedford Mercury, but that paper is apparently not part of newspapers.com.

Note: Archie Graham, Manchester's center fielder, is better known as Moonlight Graham, who would play in his only major league game the following year (June 29, 1905) for the Giants.

Fall River Daily Evening News, August 26, 1904:

There was dust in Umpire Kerns' eyes in the third and he let Murphy walk, refusing to call at least two strikes.

The first item in an accompanying "Notes" column gripes that the umpire "made Day split the plate for every strike called". . . .The umpire was referred to as "Kerns" (game story), "Kerins" (Notes column), and "Kerin" (box score).

Baseball In The 1970s

Actual game action, Cubs at Cardinals, September 22, 1974, top of the ninth inning:

This is absolute chaos pic.twitter.com/vIH4wjft0X

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 8, 2021

Bruce Markusen, The Hardball Times, March 17, 2020:

With the score remaining tied heading to the ninth, [Cardinals relief pitcher Al] Hrabosky decided to make the Cubs wait by going through his trademark routine, which he called "The Psych." Hrabosky walked behind the mound, furiously rubbed up the ball, muttered a few words to himself as motivation, and then slammed the ball from his bare hand into his glove before stomping back onto the mound. The Cubs' first batter of the inning, future batting champion Bill Madlock, had little interest in waiting patiently for Hrabosky to carry out the gestures of The Psych. As "The Mad Hungarian" primped his way through his pre-arranged maneuvers, Madlock stepped out of the batter's box and walked back toward the on-deck circle.

Once Hrabosky returned to the mound, Madlock made his way back to the plate. As Madlock stepped in to the batter's box, Hrabosky repeated his psych-up routine. He again walked behind the mound, rubbed up the ball, and then slammed it into his glove. So once again, Madlock stepped out of the box and returned to the on-deck circle.

Home plate umpire Shag Crawford, a veteran of National League games beginning in 1956, grew irritated by the delays. According to an interview in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Crawford yelled at Madlock, "Bill, get back here!" After the game, Crawford explained the situation further. "I thought maybe he didn't hear me because of the crowd noise. So I went after him and said it again."

The Cubs were furious, feeling Crawford was essentially placing the blame on Madlock for the delay and not Hrabosky. Cubs manager Jim Marshall charged out of the third base dugout and ran to a point between the dugout and home plate, where he was met by Crawford and also joined by the Cubs' on-deck batter, Jose Cardenal. Marshall and Cardenal began to argue with Crawford, but the umpire had little patience with the discussion. After only a few seconds, he walked away back to home plate. As Marshall and Cardenal continued their arguments with him, Crawford crouched behind home plate, pumped his first toward Hrabosky, and ordered the left-hander to deliver the next pitch.

It was an odd decision by the respected Crawford, a veteran of three World Series, and it only seemed to exacerbate the situation. With no one standing in the batter's box, Hrabosky threw a fastball to Simmons, who caught the ball well above the plane of the strike zone. The pitch was clearly a ball, but Crawford called it a strike, further angering the Cubs.

Realizing Hrabosky now had the advantage of pitching against a phantom batter, Cardenal waved at Madlock before suddenly stepping into the batter's box himself . . . [M]aking a frantic dash from the on-deck circle, Madlock tried to push Cardenal out of the way and take his own place in the batter's box. All the while, Marshall was standing just to the right of Simmons, who pushed the manager away as he moved into his crouch to receive the next pitch . . . [thus] creating one of the most unusual sights in baseball history: two batters in the box at the same time. To make the situation even more chaotic, there were now five men within the vicinity of the home plate area: Madlock and Cardenal, along with Simmons, Marshall, and Crawford. Meanwhile, the crowd at Busch Stadium observed the surreal setting in confusion, unsure of exactly what was happening. . . .

"One Of The Errors Of Old-Time Ball-Playing Was That Of Attributing Every Defeat And Every Victory To . . . The Pitchers Of The Nines." (1869)

Some followers of baseball way back in 1869 knew enough to realize that pitcher wins and losses were bullshit. So why has this erroneous habit of attributing victories and defeats to pitchers remained in vogue for an additional 152 years despite the continued improvement in ways of estimating pitching performance?

One of the errors of old-time ball-playing was that of attributing every defeat and every victory to the lack of skill, or an excess of it in the pitchers of the nines. It was never then considered that so long as chances for putting players out were offered off the pitching that the pitcher did his duty, and also that is was only when he was badly punished, that is, when the batsmen made bases off his pitching by clean hits easily, that he could be justly charged with the loss of a game. We have noticed that the erroneous estimate of a pitcher's skill which charges him with the results of bad support in the field, and which credits him with the results of skillful fielding or poor batting, is still in vogue among certain classes of the fraternity, although the condition of things as regards an estimate of good and bad pitching is being improved each season.

New York Sunday Mercury, September 19, 1869 (my emphasis)

Plus, they were pro-shift!

[from Answers to Correspondents] Will you inform me . . .whether a short-stop should change his position when a left-handed striker goes to the bat; and should the second-base man take the position he has vacated?

{Short stop should go to right-short, and second-base man between second base and short-stop's position.}

New York Sunday Mercury, November 21, 1869 (my emphasis)

"Ball-Playing . . . Is An Innocent And Excellent Recreation But When The Sport Is Carried So Far As It Is At The Present Time, It Becomes A Public Nuisance" (1858)

This is believed to be the oldest known instance of someone complaining in print about baseball having changed for the worse, of not being the proper, upstanding sport it once was, of the current crop of young men not playing the game the right way, or for the right reasons.

It was published 163 years ago – eight years before the first professional team existed and 18 years before the creation of the National League.

Taken from The Happy Home and Parlor Magazine, December 1, 1858:

BALL CLUBS

Ball-Playing has become an institution. It is no longer a healthful recreation in which persons of sedentary habits engage for needful relaxation and exercise; but it is now an actual institution. Young men associate for this object, organize themselves into an association, with constitution and laws to control them, and then plunge into the amusement with a sort of "Young America" fanaticism. In almost every town throughout all this region there is one of these regularly formed and inaugurated ball-clubs, the members of which meet frequently to practice the art, for the sake of being able to worst some neighboring club whom they challenge, or by whom they are challenged, to a hot contest. The matter has become a sort of mania, and on this account we speak of it. In itself a game at ball is an innocent and excellent recreation but when the sport is carried so far as it is at the present time, it becomes a public nuisance.

Our reasons for this conclusion are the following.

1. It has become a species of gambling. One club challenges another to a trial of their skill, and sometimes the victorious party are to be treated by the vanquished, to a dinner or supper. What would be the difference if the two parties should institute cards and ten-pins for the ball?

2. On these occasions a large collection of people are usually present. There is no objection to crowds, provided they meet for a worthy object. But if the object be evil, or is not an elevated one, the gathering usually becomes more or less censurable. Is it a very elevating scene to witness – the trial of skill at ball-playing between two parties of young men? We think not. It is about the same as rope-dancing, and certain equestrian amusements, that some low-bred performers perpetrate through the country for money. Then there is betting on these occasions, as there was at one of which we have had a description, where two thousand people were assembled. There is much confusion, too, even where intoxicating drinks are not to be had, and more when they are carried clandestinely upon the grounds, as they have been in certain instances. There is evil in all this, without any counterbalancing good.

3. Much profanity appears to be incidental to this way of playing ball. One club played for some weeks so near our studio, that every oath came right into the window like black, smoking cinders from the pit. A neighboring ball-club met them on their grounds several times, and then the swearing was awful. How young men could contrive to use so dexterously the worst words in the English language was really surprising. They would not have sworn more lustily if profanity had been necessary to propel the ball. The name of the club was "Base Ball Club." We asked a young man, why they call it "Base" remarking that once it was called Round Ball. Before he had time to reply we said, "Is it because they have so much swearing?" He saw that the name was rather significant, so that he had not much to reply. We understand that some clubs have introduced laws against the use of profane language, which is well, if the laws can be enforced. But we apprehend that they will not avail much for two reasons. One is, that a large majority of the members are swearing young men. They are in the habit of using this language, and it will take more than the rule of such an association to break them of it. The second reason is, that, as this amusement is now sustained, it provokes profanity, so that moderate swearers in other places will become immoderate on these exciting occasions.

4. It is a great waste of time and money. Two or three times a week many young men spend a part of the afternoon in this sport, and then occasionally a whole day in trying their skill with a neighboring club. Attending this there is the expense of their organization, the price of dinners and suppers, of horses and carriages to convey them to adjoining towns frequently, together with the loss of their time. If they were compelled to spend as much time and money to support preaching in the community, they would pronounce it an onerous tax.

5. It is physically injurious. Playing at ball in a moderate way for exercise is healthful for sedentary people. But this long, violent and exciting way of playing wears and tears the system. It is excessively wearisome and exhausting, much more so than tilling the farm, or making boots.

6. It absorbs the mind to the neglect of imperative duties. We are confident that employers will bear witness, that those young men, who become most absorbed in this sport, take less interest in their daily labor. This is a natural consequence. We heard an excellent school teacher complain this summer, that ball-laying had destroyed the interest of her male pupils in their school. They had caught the mania, and formed a club after the manner of the older persons, and all they seemed to think of was getting out of the school-room to enjoy the sport. For these reasons we class ball-clubs, as now existing, with circus exhibitions, military musters, pugilistic feats, cock-fighting, &c; all of which are nuisances in no small degree.

(h/t to Richard Hershberger, author of Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball (2019))

Red Sox-Yankees Will Play Tonight

The Red Sox-Yankees game last night was postponed because at least six Yankees have tested positive for Covid-19. However, a decision was made this morning ny MLB to play tonight's game.

Because one of the positive players is Aaron Judge, there are issues of contact tracing with the five Red Sox who were at the All-Star Game: Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, and Matt Barnes. The vaccination status of the five players is not known, though Martinez has previously broadcasted his ignorance spoken about his reluctance to take the vaccine.

Gio Urshela and Kyle Higashioka tested positive on rapid tests and are waiting for confirmation from regular tests. Jonathan Loaisiga, Nestor Cortes Jr., and Wandy Peralta are already on the Covid-19 injured list. GM Brian Cashman said "most" of the six players have been vaccinated.

The Yankees also had a Covid outbreak in May, when eight members of the organization, including third base coach Phil Nevin, tested positive.

Last night's game will be made up as part of a split doubleheader on Tuesday, August 17. The games will begin at 1 PM and 7 PM (both ET).

The Orioles-Rays game next Tuesday will be (it is assumed) the first major league game to be broadcast by an all-women crew. It will be the "MLB Game of the Week Live on YouTube", which is . . . something.

Melanie Newman (the Orioles' radio play-by-play announcer) will call the action with analyst Sarah Langs. Alanna Rizzo will be the on-field reporter and Heidi Watney and Lauren Gardner will take care of the pre- and postgame shows.

The New York Times reports that two NHL games last year had all-female broadcast and production crews ("[W]omen announcers, producers, directors and camera operators. Even the technicians inside the production trucks were women."). Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer began broadcasting NFL games for Amazon Prime Video in 2018 and this past March, a five-woman crew broadcast an NBA game.

Rizzo: "It shows that the world is . . . more accepting of different voices and different looks and perspectives of the game." (Yes. Only 101 years after getting the right to vote*. Yay!)

(*: Black women in several southern US states, while technically having the right to vote in 1920, were effectively denied that right until 1965.)

One of the most infamous ballpark promotions of all time occurred on June 4, 1974: "Ten Cent Beer Night" in Cleveland. Twelve-ounce cups of beer were priced at one thin dime (marked down from 65 cents!). As almost anyone could have predicted, many fans got wildly drunk, there was a riot, and Texas won the game by forfeit.

That misguided adventure seemed to encapsulate the shrugged-shoulder explanation of "Well, the '70s were a different time", but events last Thursday night at Yogi Berra Stadium in Little Falls, New Jersey, showed that some people never learn. (I suppose it was deja vu all over again.)

The New Jersey Jackals (Frontier League (independent)) decided to have $1 Beer Night and . . . lo and behold . . . things got messy. Fans apparently threw beer at some players (or into one of the dugouts) and the players failed to see the humor in the gesture.

A literal ‘Malice in the Palace’ style brawl between players and fans in the stands of the NJ Jackals game just broke out while @NjTank99 was judging a hotdog contest on the other side of the stadium.

Dollar Beer night in independent baseball hits different pic.twitter.com/yBT4qthRAL

— TJ (RUTGERS) (@TJHitchings) July 16, 2021

Without a doubt one of the wildest experiences I've ever had at a live sporting event. NJ Jackals and Sussex County Miners players head into the stands after beer is thrown into the opposing dugout by a drunk fan. @NjTank99 and I were on the scene live. pic.twitter.com/4lAa2WSnGy

— TJ (RUTGERS) (@TJHitchings) July 16, 2021

"You Have To Baby Them, Pat Them On The Back, Almost Apologize When You Criticize Them."

I don't think ballplayers today could play for a man like [former manager George] Stallings. They can't stand to be told things directly today when they do something wrong, and when they do something right you have to praise them. You have to baby them, pat them on the back, almost apologize when you criticize them. You have to be just so careful with them and not mishandle them, or their feelings will be hurt, and they'll say you don't like them, or that you're holding something against them. If some of the players today, and this goes for umpires today, too, had to listen to some of the things I've been called, they'd hve a fit.

Jocko Conlan, from Jocko, by Jocko Conlan and Robert Creamer (1967)

John Bertrand "Jocko" Conlan (1899-1989) was an outfielder with the White Sox for two seasons (1934-35) before working as an umpire in the National League from 1941-65. Conlan is a member of the Hall of Fame (Veterans Committee, 1974).

"And Dusty McBaseclogger Went 1⅔-for-5"

 "A change should be made in sacrifice hits. Many favor giving the batter credit for a one-third hit. It is a good idea." New York Press.

A half hit would be about the right thing. Then we shall have real team work at the bat, and the slugger who can do nothing but slug for home runs and his personal record would soon be brought to his proper level.

The Sporting Life, Editorial, May 3, 1890

(Please: Do not send this to Rob Manfred.)

Players Today "Have Been Pampered. Baseball Is Handed To Them On A Silver Platter." (1942)

[Times] have changed drastically now. You can't drive players any more, the way they were driven in [John] McGraw's heyday. We have college boys, young men who have been pampered. Baseball is handled to them on a silver platter. They get bonuses for signing contracts. They are invited to tryout camps, where the best available teachers are provided. Why, in the old days a rookie was lucky to get his hands on a bat. He had to fight his way to the plate. No, you can't handle players nowadays with the iron fist.

Billy Southworth, The Sporting News, October 1, 1942

Southworth played for 13 seasons and managed for 13 seasons. He was voted into the Hall of Fame as a manager by the Veterans Committee in 2008.

"Making A Great Defensive Play Then Leading Off The Next Inning"

. . . a diving catch by Willie Davis of a line drive hit by Jay in order to stop one Red rally.

"Willie Davis will lead off the next inning," announced Scully as the Dodgers ran to their bench, where Davis was applauded. "Naturally."

Scully meant this as an aside, probably, but it's eerily true that a man, after he's made an outstanding defensive play, will often bat first in the next inning, earning fresh, loud applause. (Abner Doubleday and Destiny apparently agreed on this matter when they formulated the rules of baseball.)

Pennant Race, by Reds pitcher Jim Brosnan (1962), writing about the 1961 season*. This was Brosnan's second book, after The Long Season (detailing his 1959 season). While Brosnan's books were not fully-sanitized accounts, they were nothing like Jim Bouton's Ball Four in 1970. Brosnan chose to retire after the 1963 season rather than sign a White Sox contract which included a clause forbidding him from writing any additional books.

Making A Great Defensive Play Then Leading Off The Next Inning
John Dewan, Bill James Online, November 5, 2013

Announcers are always saying, "Isn't that amazing! Dokes just made that incredible play, and sure enough, here he is leading off the next inning. That sure seems to happen more often than not."

Of course, the probability that the player who made a great play in the previous inning coming up to bat lead-off is one out of nine. . . . But does it actually happen more often than that? I recently had an email conversation with Craig Wright on this subject where he said "We have the old adage that when you make a great play you often lead off in your team's next at-bats. It seems like a false connection simply made up in our minds, but who really knows without actually checking it out? Maybe the more distant we are from our last at-bat the more focused on defense we are and likely to make a great play."

We can check that! Baseball Info Solutions tracks plays defensively on a scale of one to five, with five being impossible plays (hits that fall in that no one could possibly have fielded) and one being the most routine of plays. The most difficult playable plays are scored a four. Last year, plays scored a four were only turned into outs about once per game. This is truly a great play.

Looking at our data, if we exclude plays made in the final half-inning of the game (where there was no opportunity to bat the next inning) and plays that occurred in the same inning as each other (such that one player could preclude the other from leading off the next inning), there were 2,290 times during the 2013 season that a fielder made an out on a play scored a four. How often did that player bat lead-off the next inning? 233 times. That's 10.2 percent, or a little less than the one out of nine (11.1 percent) chance he had of leading off the next inning anyway. If we limit ourselves just to plays that were scored a four and were the third out of the inning, there were 735 of those, after which the fielder that made the play led off the next inning 70 times. That's 9.5 percent. So it doesn't look like there is any truth to that old adage after all.

A couple of the commenters point out that the chance of the fielder leading off the next inning is likely better than 1-in-9, because a highlight-reel play to end an inning is rarely made by either the pitcher or catcher. Having a DH in the lineup alters the 1-in-9 percentage, as well.

If the adage is ever uttered by an announcer now, it is said ironically, with the speaker fully aware that it is a well-worn cliche. . . . Probably. . . . I'll bet some announcers still believe it.

Commenter KaiserD2:

One of the funniest things I've ever heard in a baseball broadcast was uttered by Lanny Frattare, the Pirates' broadcaster, sometime in the late 1980s, I believe. Someone came up with two outs in the bottom of an inning after making a spectacular play in the top of the inning. "Have you ever noticed," said Frattare with a straight face, "how often a guy who makes a great play comes up third?"

*: I checked BRef for the Reds-Dodgers series (April 21-23, 1961). There was no instance of Willie Davis leading off an inning after recording the third out in the previous half-inning.

Electronic Sign Stealing (September 1900)

1st electronic sign stealing dates back to 9/17/1900...@Reds Captain Tom Corcoran found a metal box buried below the 3rd base coaching box with a "ticker" inside it. The @Phillies were sending "taps" from their clubhouse window to 3d base coach below#BaseballandtheLaw 247-48 pic.twitter.com/SzMgzW152h

— #BaseballandtheLaw 🏛 ⚾️ (@baseballandthe2) September 17, 2020

"1st electronic sign stealing dates back to 9/17/1900. ... Reds Captain Tom Corcoran found a metal box buried below the 3rd base coaching box with a "ticker" inside it. The Phillies were sending "taps" from their clubhouse window to 3d base coach below."

Tom Seaver Refused To "Stick To Sports"

From Matthew Callan, who writes "America's only Twitter account":

for the "stick to sports" crowd, don't forget that while Tom Seaver was pitching the Mets to a championship he was voicing very public support for the Moratorium against the Vietnam War (from "Nixonland") pic.twitter.com/IfBUwEx2Np

— Matthew Callan (@scratchbomb) September 3, 2020

keep in mind that (even more so than now) the world of MLB was pretty conservative in 1969, the Mets were in the middle of the playoffs, and Seaver was an ex Marine. there were many reasons why he might have at least kept quiet. he chose not to to. pic.twitter.com/uDwQUYissw

— Matthew Callan (@scratchbomb) September 3, 2020

Tom Seaver was 24 years old, in only his third major league season, not yet the star he became, a former Marine who had joined up straight out of high school, working in an extremely conservative industry, in the "capital" of a conservative country, voicing clear opposition to the Vietnam War in 1969, during the World Series.

h/t Craig Calcaterra