I’m not sure any MLB pitcher releases the ball with their foot still on the rubber. The first slow motion example I Googled brought up a video of Zack Greinke. Around the 0:30 mark you can clearly see that his foot is a foot or more in front of the rubber when he releases the ball.
If they enforced this rule it would cause a whole lotta chaos.
Yeah, I don’t think you could enforce it. Just about every pitcher does it.
I think MLB is ok with it as long as it’s part of the natural delivery, i.e. the foot pushes off or slides off as part of the throw. They’re not ok with a pitcher jumping vertically off the rubber or getting a running start.
Did you find any examples of Carter Capps? He had a crazy delivery where he jumped down the mound and was probably 2-3 feet off the rubber at the point of release. According to MLB, it’s legal as long as the pitcher drags his toe and doesn’t jump up.
Slo-mo starts at 1:40 below.
Well, the Hall of Fame released their Contemporary Era ballot. Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Belle, Mattingly, McGriff, Murphy, Palmeiro. I’m sure this was all planned in advance, but it just seems like a really bad idea. Bonds/Clemens/Palmeiro are still toxic in the public’s view and should have all been left off until the stink blows off of them (or not - maybe they’ll forever be tainted). I think they should get in, but god is it the wrong time.
They also left Lou Whitaker off yet another ballot, which is absurd.
Oh yeah, I remember Capps. For the life of me I can’t understand why that was acceptable.
Apart from Negro League players, have any of these committees enshrined a deserving candidate? It seems like nothing more than a backdoor for undeserving players like Morris, Baines and Mazeroski.
I mean, they’re eligible, right? How do you leave them off? That would be a dreadful move - it’s the nomination process pre-deciding they shouldn’t be elected.
Minnie Minoso wasn’t a bad pick, Alan Trammell was a good pick, and Ron Santo was a good pick.
They had the ability to define the years of eligibility. They could very easily have said “Anyone whose careers started after 1975 and ended before 2005”, or whatever they wanted to arbitrarily define as their completely fabricated era, and conveniently excluded the controversial players.
“You did this to specifically not have to vote on Bonds and Clemens!!”
“Yes, that’s correct. See you in 20 years.”
“Oh. Well nevermind then…”
That’s the first that came to mind for me as well. He’s not really a Negro League selection as he is an MLB one, at least in my mind.
IMHO that article mostly misses on why baseball has become less popular. The game is still the same, it’s the audience that has changed. There’s always been eras where different aspects of the games were emphasized. Dead ball eras vs. home run eras. Times where base stealing was more or less popular. There’s also the supposed influence of various scandals, even though we can go back to the Black Sox to Pete Rose to the spitball days to the steroid era home run races and find that there’s been cheating in all eras. None of that is why the game is less popular. The problem is that the audience has changed, not that the game has changed. My guess is that if we had a time machine and brought a bunch of old school fans from the past to the present day, they would be just as happy to watch today’s game as they were watching the game from some long passed era rather than complain about too many strike outs, not enough base runners, or whatever else is the supposed reason for the decline of baseball.