When Baseball Was Baseball
By Gordon Bloyer (08/02/03)
When I was young and foolish, I listened to baseball on the radio. Jack Quinlen (Cubs announcer) never mentioned a pitch count. The pitcher that started the game always tried to finish the game. A complete game was the goal. Pitchers started every four days and nobody said they were tired. If a relief pitcher came into the game, he was supposed to finish the game if he could.
Today everybody is tired. The pitchers are tired after 100 pitches. The manager brings a relief pitcher in that has not thrown 100 pitches all year and on many occasions he blows the game. The manager will even replace pitchers that are throwing shutouts or even no hitters, just because of a pitch count. Can you imagine a manager trying to take out Don Drysdale, Bob Feller or Sandy Koufax when they were pitching a shutout or a no hitter? Half the season is not over and the bullpen is tired because they threw 15 pitches yesterday. We can’t wear out the bullpen. Some of these guys will pitch to one batter 39 times this year and at the end of the year the announcers will say he is tired.
A 25 year old outfielder will be given a rest after only 60 games because the manager says he is tired. I’m glad Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripkin Jr., Willie Mays and Billy Williams did not get tired so easy. Ernie Banks always said, ''Let's play two.'' I guess he wasn’t so tired. Sammy Sosa hit four home runs in a row in a game and the manager took him out to give him a rest. I guess we will never know if he can hit five home runs in one game. Babe Ruth would have knocked that manager on his rear.
Under today’s managers, Early Wynn would never have won 300 games, Harvey Haddix would never have pitched 12 perfect innings, no one would have played in 1,000 games in a row, Warren Spahn would have never completed 382 games (I can’t believe he wasn’t too tired), Ernie Banks would not have hit 512 home runs, and Satchel Paige would never have pitched in the big leagues because he was too tired.
Even the managers are tired. In the old days there were player managers and some managers would also be the third base coach. The managers would go out to the mound to talk to the pitcher. Today the manager might go out to take the pitcher out of the game. The managers are so tired they have a bench coach. His job is to see if the players on the bench are too tired to play.
Some of the players, like Barry Bonds, are so tired they don’t run out hits off the wall. Bonds cost the Giants a run in a recent Cubs game because he was so tired he lobbed the ball to the plate. I understand why these stars in the outfield are so tired. They have to run out to their position every inning and they may catch two or three balls a game. That will kill you.
Well, I’m tired too. I tired of watching Mark Prior lose the chance to win games because the bullpen blew the game. Prior and many other of today’s pitchers will never win 300 games. It is hard to win 300 when you only start every five days and the manager is looking to replace you in the seventh inning. The more pitchers you bring in the game the more chance there is to blow it. I’m tired of watching managers run out of players because they started using all the bench by the fifth inning. I’m tired of watching million dollar 230 hitters. Baseball was better when the players were not so tired. Baseball was better when players were not paid as much. Baseball was better when managers didn’t think too much.
I don’t go to the ballpark anymore. I’m just too tired.
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