This will be a long, five-part post, possibly broken up by other stuff…In 2023, Bill James shut down Bill James Online, which he launched in 2008 as a home for the kind of writing and studies—when I think of James, the words “you could study that” immediately come to mind—that used to find their way into his annual Abstracts and Baseball Books. The site also had a section called “Hey Bill,” where readers could send in a question and he’d answer as many as he felt like answering. One of the first indicators for me that the site was nearing its end, actually, was when the “Hey Bill”s slowed down drastically; James had always been really good about posting a few almost every day. (The site was, surprisingly, put back online recently—not sure exactly when—but, without the ability to log in, only a small part of it can be accessed.)
I was, of course, an enthusiastic and prolific “Hey Bill”-er. I saved everything, and below are the first few years of all the “Hey Bills” I had answered, starting with a question from August of 2010 about, of all things, Tiger Woods’ car crash. Time stands still…
Writing James was a bit of an adventure, and, I’ll say with some humility, I got pretty good at getting questions into print (I’d say he answered about 80-90% of what I sent in) and making sure not to press his buttons (you’ll see that I did, every now and again). Getting slapped down by James wasn’t pleasant. He could be rude, and he could be maddeningly arbitrary. The latter was especially fascinating to observe, and to use as a guide of what to avoid. (If this is starting to sound a little bit like Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, that’s because it’s not a bad analogy.) For a while, acronyms were verboten; if you sent in a question that mentioned FIP, he’d print it just so he could say “Sorry, I don’t answer questions with acronyms.” The next day, there might be a question he clearly liked with two or three acronyms. The biggest red flag for a long time was WAR, which he hated and didn’t think contributed anything to understanding a player’s value. (I’ll spare you a long digression, but part of the issue was that the sport settled on WAR rather than James’s own Win Shares as the default analytical tool.) Again, if your question referred to WAR, he’d just brush that part of it aside. Eventually, he kind of gave up and accepted it as a necessary evil. Just to make sure, though, you’ll see that whenever I mentioned WAR, I usually threw in a reference to Win Shares alongside it.
I happily lived with all of it. As I often say, the chance to regularly correspond with one of my key writing heroes would have been almost unthinkable pre-internet. And I’m forever sorry that I didn’t get to do the same with Pauline Kael. (Both Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau have incorporated “Hey Bill”-like features into their Substacks.)
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Bill: You've written a lot on age and peak performance in
baseball. Any thoughts on the degree to which Tiger Woods' worsening play is a
function of his off-course problems? Is the one wholly causing the other, or is
it more a case that the personal stuff is masking (and exacerbating) a decline
that was inevitable anyway?
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: August 10, 2010
I don't know nothin' about golf, but my assumption has been that this was 99% caused by his personal problems, leading to massive distractions and an inability to stay on the course. Golfers age slowly, don't they? I think their aging curve has a lower slope, so that a golfer of Tigers' age would not normally be experiencing a decline of anything like this magnitude.
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Bill: A baseball fan since 1970, and a reader of yours
since 1983, I've been arguing with some hardcore sabermetricians (i.e., they
keep throwing metrics at me I've never heard of) on a message board over the
prospect of a Triple Crown Winner. Me: It's something I've been waiting forever
to see, and I'm excited. Them: RBIs are overrated, BA is overrated, who cares.
Me: I know all that--I'm still excited. Am I wrong? I never felt like the
purpose of sabermetrics was to reach a point where you'd shrug off two guys
within reach of a Triple Crown.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: August 30, 2010
No no…you're right. They don't have to care about the Triple Crown if they don't want to, but nobody should step on your enjoyment of it because they think RBI aren't meaningful. I think it's a clear case of "Up yours, buddy."
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Bill -- Sparked by Posnanski's column the other day about
worst post-WWII Series winners, my message board has been debating the issue. I
suggested that the '80 Phillies are a candidate, in that they were a very
mediocre team propped up by two all-time greats and Tug McGraw. Another guy is
countering that the mere fact of Schmidt and Carlton being on the team
eliminates them from consideration. Any thoughts?
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: November 7, 2010
I think you may both be 90% right. You are certainly correct in saying that that was a fifth-place team that was carried to the top by two fantastic talents and a good reliever. Your counterpoint may also be correct in saying that that's enough to lift them out of the class of truly weak champions.
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Bill: No question, just an idea. You need a catch-phrase
for every question that annoys you for one reason or another (presumptuous,
long-winded, etc.). Something like "You're fired," or "No soup
for you--next!" Having one phrase at-the-ready will save you a lot of time
andeffort. (I've just set you up perfectly to give your new line a test
run...)
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: December 5, 2010
Questions that annoy me I delete immediately, and you never know they exist.
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Bill -- Sorry to turn to you as a litigator of
message-board arguments yet again. 1973 Cy Young vote...Briefly: a) slam-dunk
for Blyleven over Palmer, or b) a case could be made for either. As you might
guess, the argument arose out of Blyleven's HOF candidacy.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: January 2, 2011
It's a legitimate contest, and a case can be made for either; in fact, I kind of think I might vote for Palmer. They pitched a comparable number of innings (325 for Blyleven, 296 for Palmer), and Palmer had a better ERA (2.40 to 2.52). The Park Factor for Baltimore (Palmer) was actually HIGHER that year (111) than the park factor for Minnesota/Blyleven (108). Lee Sinins' Runs Saved Against Average shows Blyleven at +53 (53 runs better than an average pitcher), Palmer at +54. The pro-Blyleven argument relies, then, on strikeouts and walks; Blyleven's K/W was 258 to 67, whereas Palmer's was a very unimpressive 158 to 113. Palmer's excellent ERA apparently derived in substantial measure from the superlative Baltimore defense, which had Gold Glove quality fielders at second (Grich), third (Brooks Robinson), short (Belanger) and in center field (Paul Blair). Blyleven's advocates can reasonably argue that the Runs Saved analysis credits to Palmer the good work of the fielders behind him.
Yes, that's true, and certainly…I'm sort of assuming people know this…Palmer had better offensive support. Blyleven was shackled with 2 runs or less in 16 starts. He had a 2.99 ERA in those starts, but was 4-12. Given 3 runs or more to work with he was 16-5, but that only adds up to 20-17.
Palmer, on the other hand, had "only" nine starts of 2 runs or less. He was 1-6 in those starts, but 21-3 with 3 runs or more, which makes 22-9.
Yes, that's true, but there are a couple of other points on Palmer's behalf. First, Palmer was charged with only 7 un-earned runs; Blyleven, with 18. There's another 11 runs for which Blyleven escapes all responsibility because of the vagaries of the un-earned run rule.
Second, if you look at the games that Palmer and Blyleven did have a chance to win…Bert Blyleven had 6 starts in which he had 3 runs of support. He gave up 20 runs in those six games (five of them un-earned), had a 3.00 ERA, and was just 1-4 in those six games. Palmer, in his six games with three runs of support, had a 1.80 ERA with no un-earned runs, and was 4-1. There's a three-game swing that can't be attributed to offensive support.
Both Blyleven and Palmer also had five starts with (exactly) six runs of support. Again, Palmer pitched better in those games. Palmer had a 2.00 ERA in those games, and his team won all five games; Blyleven had a 2.59 ERA, and his team lost one of those games (although Palmer was not charged with the defeat.) Palmer limited opponents that year to a .199 batting average (.249 slugging percentage) with runners in scoring position. I'd be reluctant to assert that that was luck, in that Palmer's career batting average allowed with runners in scoring position was .213.
It seems to me that to say absolutely that Palmer was better than Blyleven relies heavily on the argument of strikeouts and walks--to the point of saying that other things don't count. I believe in strikeouts and walks, but not to the extent of saying that other things don't count. I think it's a legitimate contest.
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Bill -- Any thoughts on the relationship between
post-season performance and a closer's HOF candidacy? We've been debating Billy
Wagner's case. View #1: Sample size matters, and you can't base anything on
11.2 innings. View #2: The nature of a closer's job is different--they're
supposed to come up big when it matters most. (View #3 is called Mariano
Rivera--post-season's the difference between getting 98% of the vote and 99%.)
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: January 2, 2011
Or Rollie Fingers. Fingers is in the Hall of Fame mostly because of what he did in post-season, I think. I don't have a theory to explain here.
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Bill: It's highly unlikely Roy Halladay will retire with
as much career value as Clemens or Maddux. (At least I think it's highly
unlikely--not impossible that he'd catch Maddux, I suppose.) Where do you think
he stands in relation to those two guys in terms of peak value, though? We
should have a pretty good idea of Halladay's peak value by now. What's your gut
instinct tell you? (If you want to throw in Pedro and Randy Johnson, even
better.)
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: April 8, 2011
Not less than them; a little different, but not less. He's probably the top pitcher in his generation, and I'm not sure you can go higher. You strike out 215 batters a year and walk 30…it's not Clemens, it's not Maddux, but it's not LESS than Clemens or Maddux.
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Bill: I was listening to a short interview of Tom
Verducci reacting to Verlander's MVP win. I like Verducci a lot, but something
jumped out at me (speculating on Verlander's future): "We know he's a
power pitcher, and those guys tend not to last a long time." My first
thought was "Ryan, Clemens, Johnson, Seaver, Schilling, etc." Second
thought was, "I thought Bill James had something in an old Abstract that
debunked this idea." Is this still a common fallacy, or, more broadly
speaking, is there truth to what Verducci says--i.e., are there three Kerry
Woods for every one of those guys? (In fairness, Verducci seemed to think
Verlander would last.)
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 11/22/2011
There are three Jeff Francises for every Kerry Wood. This idea is not merely a fallacy; it is the direct opposite of one of the game's most important truths: That power pitchers last DRAMATICALLY longer than finesse pitchers. Essentially ALL pitchers who last a long time are power pitchers.
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Bill -- I'm sure you'll be deluged with suggestions for
your "Going Out on Top" piece, so let me be the first: Tom Henke, one
of my favourite players ever. He had 36 saves, a 1.82 ERA, and the usual array
of excellence across his peripheral stats. I'm guessing it's easier for a
stopper to go out on top than a starter or position player.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 12/17/2011
Thanks.
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Bill: This isn’t the most precise question, but I’ll give
it a go anyway...Do you believe--or do you know of any studies that
indicate--there’s a correlation between teams who play better late in the
season (as opposed to April and May) and winning divisions/pennants? This
springs from some recent back-and-forth I had over the relative merits of
Verlander and Bautista for MVP. Obviously, all wins count equally in the
standings--a win in September is a win in June is a win on Opening Day, etc.
But in making the case against Bautista, I remarked that it bothered me that he
was so much more formidable in April and May than he was the rest of the way,
while Verlander was close to unbeatable the last two months. But I don’t know
if I’m placing importance on something--the notion that players have added
value if they perform well down the stretch--that has no basis in fact.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 12/30/2011
Well…in general championship teams play better late in the season. The league "pulls apart" late in the year; the .400 teams play .350 baseball, the .600 teams .650 baseball…actually .640 or something, but the gap widens. It isn't what you were asking, but it IS a correlation between playing better later in the season and winning the pennant.
It has been shown that playing well late in the season has SOME carryover value to the next season. If you take two 90-72 teams, but one was 50-31 the first half, 40-41 the second half, while the other was the opposite, the team which played better late in the season has some advantage in the next season. But I am not aware of any study that shows that teams that play well late in the year have a meaningful advantage in post-season play.
On a related issue…I remember we used to have people in the field who would fume about late-inning homers being counted as more important than early-game homers, etc. We just hadn't worked out a coherent way to think about the problem. Eventually we all came around to the concept of "leveraged" situations, a concept with which people are comfortable, so people stopped bitching about game-time performance being given additional weight. It's not unreasonable to think that late-season performance in a pennant race is ALSO leveraged performance, and should be given weight.
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Bill -- One thing I loved in Popular Crime was your digression on the Rosenbergs, and how things that initially seem frivolous will later be viewed as hugely important (and vice versa). I'm always amused when little political controversies flare up (e.g., the Ann Romney thing from last week), and a certain mindset automatically dismisses them as meaningless distractions from the "real issues." Anyway, I thought of you when I read this piece in Slate that tries to quantify various political controversies. The writer's approach to the question reminded me of the way you often lay out your own thinking on various matters--categorize, organize, systemize--even though I don't think he gives enough weight to something like the Romney flare-up.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 4/16/2012
Thanks.
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Bill -- A leap into the dreaded land of
intangibles...Most everyone agrees now that the irreplaceability of a closer
was vastly overstated for a number of years; teams move guys in and out of that
role continually. Watching the Jays struggles this year, though--five blown
saves in 21 games--has hurled me back to the couple of years in the early '80s
before they got Tom Henke, and the memory of how demoralizing a series of blown
saves can be to an otherwise good team (to a fan, anyway). Question: even though
the difference between a great position player and an adequate one is
undoubtedly quantitatively larger (in terms of WAR, or Win Shares, or whatever)
than the equivalent difference between a great/adequate closer, might there be
an intangible psychological importance to the great closer that can't be
measured?
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 4/29/2012
Implying that it isn't demoralizing to lose a game in other ways? If your offense is poor and you lose games because you can't score runs, this doesn't demoralize the pitchers? If your starting pitching is bad and you're playing from behind every day, this doesn't demoralize the rest of the team?
Of course it is POSSIBLE that there are things we can't measure, in the same way it is possible that the world around us is full of creatures or beings of some nature of which we are unaware because none of our five senses will pick them up. The question is, why should one believe in any one of these things?
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Bill -- Re Hank Gillette's letter yesterday: I became
really interested in Triple Crown challenges the year Delgado made a run at one
with the Jays. I started fooling around with this formula to quantify how close
various people have come: [(BA/BA leader) squared + (HR/HR leader) squared +
(RBI/RBI leader) squared]/3. Using that, my Top 10 closest since Yaz are: 1)
Dick Allen, '72; 2) Matt Kemp, '11; 3) George Foster, '77; 4) Jim Rice, '78; 5)
Albert Pujols, '10; 6) Mike Schmidt, '81; 7) Dante Bichette, '95; 8) Willie
McCovey, '69; 9) Larry Walker, '97; 10) Barry Bonds, '93. Also, for what it's
worth: if Billy Williams had gotten one extra game in '72 and hit three solo
home runs, he would have won a Triple Crown. Anyway, the point holds--since
none of them went 1st-1st-2nd, no one player ever prevented anyone from winning
a Triple Crown.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 5/12/2012
Thanks.
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Bill: Do you know of any pitcher who has ever averaged
two strikeouts per inning over a decent-sized sample (say a minimum of 60
innings)? Aroldis Chapman has struck out 80 in 42.2 IP so far. All the seasonal
leaders lists are based on ERA qualifiers, so they don't help; I threw the
question out on a message board, and the closest suggestions (Billy Wagner,
Eric Gagne) all topped out at 14-15 K/9.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 7/24/2012
Taking that record all the way back to 1876, and using 60 innings as the standard all the way…in 1876 Tommy Bond averaged 1.94 strikeouts per 9 innings, leading the National League. In 1877 Bobby Mitchell increased that to 3.69, and in 1878 Mitchell broke his own "record" with 5.74 strikeouts per nine innings.
You have to remember that in this era they would still, for example, change how many strikes were required for a strikeout…one year it was 5, the next year 4, etc…so records were pretty fluid. In 1883 Grasshopper Jim Whitney (so called because he had a tiny little head that looked like a grasshopper's head) struck out 6.04 batters per 9 innings, and in 1884 One Arm Daily (so called because he had only one arm) struck out 8.68 per 9 innings. In 1885 Toad Ramsey (so called because. . .) struck out 9.46.
We could start the sequence over at 1900, but…let's not. If we credit the 19th century record as a legitimate major league record, that record stood until Bob Feller struck out 11.03 batters per 9 innings in 1936, the remarkable thing being that Feller was only 17 years old at that time. This record stood until Dick Radatz (The Monster) struck out 11.05 per 9 innings in 1963.
That record stood until John Hiller struck out 11.08 in 1975. That record stood until Dwight Gooden struck out 11.39 in 1984; Gooden was only 19 years old, and Gooden was the last starting pitcher to own the record, and the only starting pitcher to own the record since Bob Feller.
Tom Henke broke that record in 1986, at 11.63, and then Henke broke his own record in 1987, at 12.26. Henke's record was broken in 1989 by Rob Dibble, at 12.82; Dibble then broke his own record twice, upping the ante to 13.55 in 1991 and 1992. His record was broken by Billy Wagner. Wagner struck out 14.38 in 1997, then broke his own record twice, with 14.55 in 1998 and 14.95 in 1999.
Wagner's record was broken by Eric Gagne, who struck out 14.98 in 2003. Gagne's record was broken by Carlos Marmol in 2010; Marmol struck out 15.99.
So…Chapman may well break the record. If he doesn't, somebody will within a couple of years, and then it is fairly likely that that person will break his own record once or twice, and then the record will be handed off to somebody else within a few years. Records are made to be broken--in this case probably within five years.
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Another big message-board argument--like most of the
things we argue about, extremely basic. When weighing an MVP candidacy, do you
place any weight on late-season performance (from Sept. 1 onward, say,
presumably for a team in contention)? Is it worth a lot, a little, nothing, or
does it vary from year to year and player to player?
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 10/4/2012
I would think you could place SOME weight on late-season play. Obviously we don't want to encourage a repeat of 1979, when Willie Stargell stole an MVP award with three big late-season hits.
We used to have passionate arguments about how to give weight to the innings pitched by relievers. Tango got us out of that rut by developing the Leverage Index, which rationally compares innings pitched by the situation. So the question is, has anyone developed a "Game Leverage Index", which compares the pennant impact of different games, and thus would create a pathway toward a reasoned resolution of this?
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Bill -- I did an online piece a few years ago where I listed and wrote about all the Neil Young covers I'd collected (self-aggrandizing link below). I speculated in the piece that Young was the third-most covered pop artist ever--behind Dylan at number two and, way, way out front, the Beatles at number one. At the time, I'd collected about 115 hours' worth of Beatles covers. I don't know how many hours I'm up to now, but I'd estimate I've got somewhere between 5,000-6,000 Beatles covers on my external drive, and I basically confine myself to what I get from a couple of sites that specialize in Beatles covers (i.e., if I ever started actively searching, there'd be no end to it). So, while I think Dylan was probably covered as frequently in the '60s, I suspect the Beatles have lapped him many times over by now.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 10/3/2012
Yeah, well…experts are experts, but it still doesn't seem plausible. And Dylan HAS to have been covered more in the last ten years than the Beatles.
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Bill -- Apologies if this has been asked in this forum
before, and I know it probably doesn't lend itself to a quick and easy answer,
but do you have any strong convictions about the relationship between viable
MVP candidates and team performance? We've been arguing about this on my
message board, and as is almost always the case, I lean towards the
conventional, probably soon-to-be-antiquated notion that team performance
should be factored in, while everyone else is on the side of MVP = best player,
plain and simple.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 11/16/2012
I think it is MVP = Best Player, for this reason. The definition of the best player is the player who does the most to help his team. What other definition is there? If the definition of the best player is the player who does the most to help his team, then how can the team be a separate and distinct consideration?
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Bill: Carlos Baerga always comes to mind when I think of
players falling off a cliff early in their careers. Not sure how he computes in
terms of Win Shares, but at least according to WAR, it looks as if 100% of his
career value comes by the time he's 26; he did go on to have three more
mediocre seasons before turning 30. I can't remember if there were any
explanations offered at the time.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 2/28/2013
Well…not saying that Carlos was a steroid guy, but…one of the chief effects of steroids was to PROLONG player's careers. Outfielders and first basemen who used steroids effectively continued to IMPROVE after the age at which they would ordinarily be in decline.
But among middle infielders of that era, the opposite pattern is apparent. There are a number of "slugging middle infielders" of that era whose careers tailed off very suddenly.
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Bill: Not a question, but following up on the knuckleball
talk, an enthusiastic recommendation for the recent documentary Knuckleball.
It was my favourite film from last year. If the people who made it missed a
living knuckleballer, I'm not sure who that would be--besides Dickey and
Wakefield (who are the focus of the film), there are also interviews with
Hough, Niekro, Bouton, Candiotti, and even Wilbur Wood. The camaraderie among
these guys is amazing--the basic premise of the film is that they're like some
esoteric sect of monks who can only communicate with each other. There's a
scene where Dickey, Wakefield, Niekro, and Hough all go out golfing together
that still makes me smile thinking about it. Everyone, see this film!
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 3/19/2013
Thanks. No Eddie Fisher?
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Bill: Leaving aside the question of whether or not
closers should get Cy Young votes, the fact is that they do, and they even
used to win them semi-regularly during Tom Henke's peak years. So I'd like to
put forth his name as another pitcher who was drastically shortchanged by Cy
Young voters. Total votes: zero, even though he was arguably the second-best
closer in the game after Eckersley from '85-95. He did draw MVP and ROY votes
during three of those seasons.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 5/26/2013
Left the game when he could still pitch. He was a dominant closer, for sure…built like Papelbon.
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Bill: The other day, Bob Costas got a little sarcastic
about the Mets going crazy over their extra-inning win over the Cubs (“another
sign of the decline of Western Civilization”). On a message board where I post,
a couple of people took umbrage at Costas’s derision. While I agree that he
maybe shouldn’t have targeted the Mets (a little celebration in the midst of a
rotten season seems understandable), I also find the recent ritual of treating
every walk-off win like the 7th game of the World Series a little excessive and
puzzling. Any idea when this took hold? I don’t remember teams doing this in
the ‘70s or even the ‘80s for mid-season games of no special consequence.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 6/19/2013
It's the last ten years. But you SHOULD get excited when you win a game in dramatic fashion. If you don't, you're not participating in the emotional experience of the game.
Used to be, I think, that players didn't celebrate on the field out of the fear of "showing up" the opposition. The practice of lining up on the field to congratulate everybody on the win started in the late 1970s, and the jumping around celebrating kind of grew out of that. Since you're on the field anyway, it seems natural to express your passion for the game. There's nothing wrong with it.
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Bill: I think you, with some help from Robin Yount,
addressed the Puig question very well in the '83 Abstract. Yount: "I can't
really answer that question because I don't know who the game is supposed to be
for. I don't know if the game is supposed to be for the fans or if it is
supposed to be for the players." You: "The answer you select to that
question will tell you who ought to elect the teams." You and Yount are
talking about who should pick the team, but I'd extend that to controversial
choices as to who should be on the team. If the game is for the players, I'd
agree that Puig is a very specious choice. If it's for the fans, well, rightly
or wrongly, he's captured their imagination and they want him there. I suppose
the obvious counter to that would be, "What if the fans want Jeff
Keppinger, does he get in?" And if Puig's numbers were like Jeff
Keppinger's, I'd agree. But they're not.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 7/10/2013
It doesn't seem to be self-evident that the fans want to see Puig. Maybe it's just a media thing?
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Bill: In light of Chris Davis, Jay Jaffe compiled a chart
the other day of all the players who've had 30 HR by the All-Star break; the
chart also included how many they hit after the break and their total for the
year. The fewest after the break (excepting strike years and injuries) were 10,
by Mays in '54 and Reggie in '69. A reader comment offered an explanation for
Mays--that Durocher asked him to concentrate on spraying the ball around the
second half (no idea whether that's true or not). Any recollection of what
happened with Reggie? His walk rate went up--once every 6.5 PA first half, once
every 5.5 second half--and the All-Star Game wasn't until July 23 that year,
but they wouldn't seem to wholly explain such a drastic 37/10 split. I also
notice that he had 24 doubles and two triples before the break--63 extra-base
hits! His slugging average dropped 260 points the second half.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 7/4/2013
The strikeout was invented in mid-season.
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Bill -- I was watching game 7 of the ’71 Series (on a VHS
re-broadcast someone gave to me; you can find the whole game on YouTube). There
was an exchange between Curt Gowdy and Chuck Thompson in the bottom of the 6th
that surprised and sort of amazed me. A precise transcription: GOWDY: Cuellar,
like Palmer, doesn’t mess around on the mound. He likes to work in a hurry.
THOMPSON: Curt, that is something that George Bamberger, the Orioles’ pitching
coach, brought with him. He likes his pitchers to work in a good rhythm. He
figures their concentration stays a lot better that way. GOWDY:...They talk
about speeding up the game. The best way to speed it up is what Cuellar’s doing
and Palmer did yesterday. They really make a game move. So people were talking
about speeding up the game as far back as ’71? Wow. That particular game took
two hours and ten minutes. It was low-scoring and well-pitched, but a 2-1 Game
7 would nevertheless surely take three hours today.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 3/31/2014
People were actively debating ways to speed up the game in the early 1950s. Lot of articles in the early 50s about how the games were dragging.
