The New Ballgame: Understanding Baseball Statistics for the Casual Fan by Glenn Guzzo Read Free Book Online Page B

They recall promising rookies like Tony Oliva, Richie Allen and Tony Conigliaro. But the pitchers, not the hitters, were earning Hall of
Fame credentials then.

    Sandy Koufax, who began pitching well in 1961, was transcendent beginning in 1963 and each season until his premature retirement at his peak
following the 1966 season. Juan Marichal and Bob Gibson were not far behind. Ferguson Jenkins, Gaylord Perry and Phil Niekro all had the good fortune to arrive during these years. So did such outstanding pitchers as Luis
Tiant, Sam McDowell, Mickey Lolich and Mel Stottlemyre, though they fell
short of Hall-of-Fame credentials.
    The results of this change could not have been more dramatic. From
1962 to 1963, run scoring plummeted 11.6%, home runs dropped 10%, and
batting averages declined sixteen points in the NL (to .245) and eight in the
AL (to .247).
    Then the hitting got really bad.
    Some wonderful baseball history masked the numbers. Both leagues
had legendary pennant races in 1964. Four AL teams were neck-and-neck in
the last week of 1967. The Yankees' decline after two generations of dominance allowed the firstAL pennants ever to fly over Minnesota and Baltimore.
The 1964, 1965, 1967 and 1968 World Series all went the dramatic maximum
seven games. Frank Robinson, freshly traded from Cincinnati to Baltimore,
won the AL Triple Crown in 1966. Boston's Carl Yastrzemski duplicated the
feat the next season. And there was the incomparable Koufax.
    But these numbers don't lie: The already-depressed offensive numbers
of 1966 took another huge plunge in 1967-the majors scored 700 fewer runs
and hit 450 fewer homers, while the NL hit just .249 and the AL an embarrassing .236. Offense was now off 15.6% in runs and 23% in home runs since 1962. Already at bottom, offense took an incomprehensible new descent in
1968. The majors lost another 1,100 runs and more than 300 homers.

    The 1968 season is now remembered as the Year of the Pitcher-the
antithesis of 1930. Denny McLain won 31 games, baseball's first 30-game
winner since Dizzy Dean in 1934. Don Drysdale pitched a record 582/-1 consecutive scoreless innings. Sub-2.00 ERAs, more typical of the war years
and Dead Ball, had already won six of the ten ERA titles from 1963-67. In
1968, Cleveland's Luis Tiant registered a 1.60 ERA-a forty-nine-year low
for the AL. And in the NL, Bob Gibson achieved his legendary 1.12 ERA, a
sixty-year low bettered only twice in modern baseball. Eight starting pitchers, and as many prominent relievers, had ERAs below 2.00. The American
League imploded with an all-time low .230 league-wide batting average. It
had exactly one .300 hitter-Yastrzemski's .301 average is the lowest ever
for a champion.
    Enough. For 1969, rule-makers returned the strike zone to the 19501962 standard: armpits to the top of the knees. They also lowered the mound
by a third, bringing pitchers five inches closer to Earth (though interviews
with pitchers of the time indicate that the strike zone was the more significant
change).
    Offense gradually returned to respectability. AL expansion in 1977
added an offensive spike in the late 1970s. Throughout the 1970s and early
1980s, baseball had perhaps its best balance between offense and pitching
ever. There was ample power, but the stolen base had returned, too (Lou
Brock set the record with 118 steals in 1974, then Rickey Henderson topped
that with 130 in 1982). Superstar starting pitchers were in rich supply and
bullpens were deeper and better than ever. From 1969 to 1987, sixteen fran chises played in the World Series-uncommon balance. In short, the baseball
was good enough to overcome double-knit uniforms, mutton-chop sideburns,
and an abundance ofAstroTurf in cavernous multi-use stadiums.

    But instead of leveling off, offense kept rising. Umpires were calling an
even smaller strike zone than the rule book required. Strike zones had always
varied by umpire, but by the mid-1980s, most strike zones