No problem, more me getting my morning snark out of the way than anything.
There are some Civil War reenactor groups that will play base ball games under vintage rules when they have a chance (usually at multiday encampments). Rather appropriate when you consider one of the first photos of people playing baseball was of soldiers at Fort Pulaski in 1862.
Returning to the original question…
A couple of answers touched on the influence of money, and new baseball-only parks replacing the multipurpose stadiums of yesteryear. I think the latter is due greatly to the former, and that the game has changed significantly due to the new urban stadiums, which tend to be better parks for hitters.
The multipurpose stadiums were frequently astroturf and had distant outfield fences and large areas of foul territory. Balls hit on the ground could get past the infielders faster, and if they went down the lines, could turn quickly into doubles and triples. The large foul area, though, could turn foul pop flies into outs, as players could run over to make plays that would end up in the fourth row in the more modern ballparks.
All this made these parks attractive to teams built around speed. The 80s Royals and Cardinals, the “Lumber and Lightning” Pirates, all thrived on fast players, particularly in the outfield, and the decreased offensive environment made small-ball strategies at least appear more viable.
But once parks that were more like Fenway appeared, the “three true outcomes” style of play predominated, and bunts, steals, hit-and-run, “hit behind the runner” all went the way of the dodo. In an environment where two walks and a homer could erase three innings of “scratch out a run” strategies, the latter simply couldn’t compete.
Evidence time: Wrigley Field’s dimensions have hardly changed in 80 years now, tho there have been the addition of some amenities to the stands (such as scoreboards). As such it serves as a very good control on the overall offensive/defensive tendencies of the other parks.
Wrigley of course was notorious for a long time for being a big hitter’s park: a ballpark index is normalized to 100, and anything above indicates a hitter’s park, anything below a pitcher’s.
Wrigley during the 50’s, when the rest of the league still mostly played in bandboxes, was a slight hitter’s park, with indices ranging from 99 to 104.
When the NL had a bunch of relocations and new ballpark construction in the 60’s to 1970 (when 3 all came on around the same time in Cincy, Pittsburgh, and Philly, all virtual clones of each other in terms of field dimensions too), it started out in the low 100’s in 1961, but reached 110+ by 1970, and remained there more or less thru the early 90’s, bouncing between 105 and 110.
Come the 90’s and Juiced Balls/Players and another new round of ballpark construction, most of it harkening back to the bandbox days, and now Wrigley’s index had dropped all the way back to 98-104. It did have a resurgence c. late 00’s/early teens, then back to the low 100’s.
Yes, the major confounding factor there is the weather and how often the wind blows in or out. [I thus focused on the multi-year indices from the link above to minimize said effects]
Yes, it was a bit startling to see the Hernandez replay on Riverfront Stadium turff (though the bounce off that stuff put the ball right in #17’s glove).
I looked up the Mariners whom I believe are/were the last team to play on turf and hope that is the case (?). Baseball should be played outdoors on grass. Last game I saw was with my wife (from St. Petersbrg) at Citi Field and she’d never ssen baseball before and knew nothing of the game yet liked the park and I miss how stunningly green the grass is. Plus it was a weekday day game (probably a getaway before going on the road to the West).
I really like Fenway. Saw the Sox beat the Yankees in the only game I saw there. A good result. I bring nothing but bad luck to the Cubs at Wrigley as I’ve not seen them win in five games, even wearing my Mark Grace #17 Jersey (number chosen by him as a tribute to the above mentioned #17). (never saw the Mets there - too conflicting).
I hope there’s no chance Wrigley or Fenway close in my lifetime. Cookie cutter shape and (more) airplanes aside, I still liked Shea yet got over it.
Definitely agreed, on both counts. Between the money (and the resulting ability to be full-time athletes), and the advances in training techniques and sports medicine, most top-level athletes in the major sports are likely far closer to their physical maximum than their counterparts were a generation ago.
Hell, I remember, in the 1970s, when then-young Brewers shortstop Robin Yount mentioned that he was lifting weights as part of his strength training, he was widely criticized for doing so. The conventional wisdom in baseball at that time was that lifting weights made you “muscle-bound,” and robbed players of their flexibility and quickness.
I really stopped following MLB with the addition of two more divisions and interleague play. When was that? 30 years ago? I’m not sure what my objections were, but it wasn’t the game I grew up with, anymore. I didn’t even know the NL had a DH until reading this thread.
Pretty close; change to six divisions (three per league) happened in 1994, and regular season interleague play began in 1997. When the Astros moved to the AL in 2013, that gave each league 15 teams, which effectively mandated that interleague games occurred throughout the season.
That was much more recent (2022, after having been temporarily implemented during the shortened 2020 season).
When he jumped from the A’s to the Yankees in free agency in late 1974, Hunter signed a five-year, $3.35 million contract. He might have been the first guy to have a contract with an overall value of $1 million+ (I’m not certain), but Ryan was the first one to get paid $1 million a year.
I know Yogi Berra (Yankees coach, in uniform) fraternized with son Dale (Pirates player, in uniform) before a spring training game. Maybe they had a loophole.
It’s been mentioned that a pitcher has to face three batters yet apparently it is allowed to “stash” them in another position and bring them in later. Not sure if you can do so in the same inning (probably can)
That infamous 1986 Mets-Reds brawl-game where McDowell and Orosco were swapping positions (and McDowell was swapping gloves too) it went 14 innings. The brawl started when Eric Davis, pinch running for, who else but Pete Rose, slid hard on a stolen base and elbowed Ray Knight who slugged him. 16 minute brawl, and two players from each team were ejected. Plus earlier in the game, Darryl Strawberry had beem ejected for arguing balls and strikes. I posted the brawl earlier, yet here’s another about how they kept swapping. In one funny bit, McDowell was now playing left field, having just swapped with Mookie Wilson (I guess a lefty was up) yet the ball is hit directly at McDowell who just stands there as Lenny Dykstra comes from center for a running catch.
As best as I can tell, this sort of swapping is still legal. I couldn’t even find anything about taking some warm-up pitches, one of the things the Reds objected to.
I remember reading about Casey Stengel ordering his players before a game not to be friendly with the opponents. This may have been a World Series game, in which old friends hadn’t seen each other in a while.
His specific instructions: “If you have anything to say, say it with a snarl”.
Re: the decline of starting pitchers. I was just perusing the active wins list (I noted Jacob DeGrom as having 44 WAR, but he only has 88 actual wins), and I made a shocking discovery…
So, make a guess: how many wins does the first pitcher still in his 20’s have?
120?
110?
100?
90?
80?
70?
Wanna try for 60?
Because that is how many Logan Webb (age 28) of the Giants has.
Oakland was the last of them, being used for both NFL and MLB until 2018 (?) when the Raiders went to Vegas. But it used to be a common thing ; Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh and Veterans in Philadelphia are two that come to mind.
Eta, stadiums designed for two sports tended to be bad for either sport, especially since football and baseball have radically different field configurations.
In 1980, these were the MLB stadiums; those which also were football stadiums are asterisked. Special cases have double asterisks.
Atlanta: Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium *
Baltimore: Memorial Stadium *
Boston: Fenway Park
California: Anaheim Stadium **
Chicago Cubs: Wrigley Field **
Chicago White Sox: Comiskey Park
Cincinnati: Riverfront Stadium *
Cleveland: Cleveland Stadium (a.k.a. Municipal Stadium) *
Detroit: Tiger Stadium **
Houston: Astrodome *
Kansas City: Royals Stadium
Los Angeles: Dodger Stadium
Milwaukee: County Stadium *
Minnesota: Metropolitan Stadium **
New York Mets: Shea Stadium *
New York Yankees: Yankee Stadium **
Oakland: Oakland-Alameda County Stadium *
Philadelphia: Veterans Stadium *
Pittsburgh: Three Rivers Stadium *
San Diego: San Diego Stadium *
San Francisco: Candlestick Park *
Seattle: Kingdome *
St. Louis: Busch Stadium *
Texas: Arlington Stadium
Toronto: Exhibition Stadium *
So, out of 26 MLB baseball stadiums in use in 1980, 15 were purpose-built as multi-sport baseball/football stadiums, and most of them had been built during the 1960s and 1970s.
An additional five stadiums (the ** ones) were originally built specifically for baseball, but also became longtime homes of NFL teams – in some cases, like Metropolitan Stadium (Twins) and Anaheim Stadium, being retrofit for football.
The old Mile High stadium had floating stands that would move to allow for Baseball, before the downtown stadium. I hope someday Denver gets a professional team again.