I’ve been watching ALOT of basball this year and I’ve really started noticing how frequently the pitchers/umps/catchers replace the baseballs that are used in game. I swear it seems that once a ball has been touched it is no longer good enough for these pitchers finicky arms.
Every foul ball is thrown into the crowd. (Though I’ve always wondered why these ball boys always throw the ball into the first 3 rows instead of showing some love to the seats in the far back)
Now, I realize that a scuffed/dirty ball can make it harder for pitchers to control their pitches. Maybe make it harder to break them in the right spot but you know what? That’s part of the game and I think they should continue to use the same ball until either the game is over or there is clear damage to the ball aka broken threads, ripped skin etc…)
I swear they must go thru 25+ balls per game. That can’t be cheap. What do they do with the balls swapped out with the Umps? Do they donate them to the little leaguers or something? Hopefully they arent thrown away.
I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t watch baseball, and really don’t know anything about it. However, I would like to point out, that the ‘new’ balls are pre-dirtied. They are shipped to someone in the south who’s job it is to dirty them with some sort of special mud that they concocted. There was a dirty jobs episode about it.
According to Don Sutton, Hall of Fame pitcher and until recently an announcer for the Braves, the real problem is that any visible scuff mark makes it that much easier for the batter to pick up the spin of the ball, and thus have a better idea of what he’s being pitched.
Actually, a scuffed ball makes it much easier for a pitcher to throw a ‘trick’ (breaking or curve) pitch. That’s why they often try to conceal blades, files, etc. in their gloves or uniform, and use them to damage the ball just before an important pitch. Quite a few pitchers have been caught at this over the years.
So it’s the umpire who decides to remove a scuffed ball. Pitchers would generally prefer that it remain in play longer.
Because to throw it up that high, they would have to throw it pretty hard. So the liability is increased if that ball hit somebody in the stands. Silly, because the language on the tickets protects them legally, but it would still be bad publicity. So they throw it softly.
Actually, when a ball is pitched into the dirt and the umpire hands over a new one, it’s not generally to help a pitcher. In fact, some pitchers might actually be happy getting a ball with a scuff or a big clump of dirt on it, because that sort of thing can make the ball move in funny ways through the air, making it harder for the batters to hit it. It’s the same reason that the rules prevent pitchers from adding foreign materials to the ball.
Well, the official supplier of baseballs to MLB is Rawlings. An Official Major League Baseball on the Rawlings website goes for $12.99, and i’ll bet that they cost less than that to supply to MLB.
But say, for argument’s sake, that each ball used in MLB is worth $13. And say they go through 50 every game. That’s a high number, based on a life of 6-7 pitches per ball, but we’ll use it for now).
That’s $650 worth of baseballs for a game. Sounds like a lot, right?
The median team payroll in Major League Baseball this year was over $80million. In a 162 game season, each teams payroll works out to over $500,000 per team, per game. With two teams on the field, each game avergaes more than $1 million in payroll.
The Devil Rays, as the lowest-payroll team, pay out about $150,000 per game. The Yankees pay over $1 million per game in payroll.
The Yankees pay out about $400,000 per game to just their three most expensive players combined—Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Jason Giambi.
Spending about 600 bucks a game on baseballs doesn’t seem like very much any more, does it?
[obligatory cricket interjection into a baseball thread]In our sport, a ball’s used for 80 overs (480 deliveries) before it’s eligible for replacement, with any extra deliveries for wides or no-balls not counted. It normally is replaced on schedule, but that’s at the discretion of the fielding side. Only if it becomes damaged (out of shape, or a seam splitting) is it replaced early, and then by selecting the best match from a batch of partially-worn balls to find one in a similar state of general wear but undamaged. New balls bounce more, are slightly quicker through the air and respond more to conventional swing-bowling technique; older ones are easier to spin and may allow use of the “reverse swing” technique if properly cared for.[/ociiabt]
I read an article about this a few months back… sorry no site. I think it was one of those “letters to the editor” type thing.
The person asked why so many more balls are used now than in the past. The column writer said it’s because the batters were asking for replacements after the ball hit the dirt. So the pitcher would have to throw it back in. It got so prevalent that they just started automatically taking them out of play.
That’s correct. A couple of years ago, as one of a series of moves to speed up the game, MLB instructed umpires to immediately drop a new ball into the catcher’s glove any time a ball was pitched or fouled into the dirt. Then, the umpire can examine the old ball at his leisure. If it’s still playable, he slips it back into his pocket. So you don’t have to hold up the game for ball inspections.
Pitchers like scuffed and dirty balls, to the point that some pitchers have made careers out of surreptitiously scuffing and dirtying them. Swapping out balls so often actually adds a buffer against cheating, since a pitcher who wanted to throw spitballs/mudballs/scuffs would now have to doctor 15 balls a game instead of three, and would be far more likely to get caught.
