Only one 50-homer season between 1970 and 1995?

iceman · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:01 am **Posts:** 32

From a Detroit Free Press column on the wire:

Baseball has never needed a 50-homer man more than it does now. It needs something clean and beyond reproach.
Before 1995, about the time the Steroid Era began, there had been one 50-homer season in 25 years. Cincinnatiâ€™s George Foster belted 52 in 1977.

Ummmm, except for Detroit Tiger Cecil Fielder, who hit 51 in 1990. Jeesh, hope somebody catches this before it goes to print there in Detroit.

KyleJRM · **Posted:** Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:29 am

iceman wrote:

From a Detroit Free Press column on the wire:

Baseball has never needed a 50-homer man more than it does now. It needs something clean and beyond reproach.
Before 1995, about the time the Steroid Era began, there had been one 50-homer season in 25 years. Cincinnatiâ€™s George Foster belted 52 in 1977.

Ummmm, except for Detroit Tiger Cecil Fielder, who hit 51 in 1990. Jeesh, hope somebody catches this before it goes to print there in Detroit.

Also note that in strike-shortened 1994 three NL players had a very good chance to hit 50, as did three AL players.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:32 pm

iceman wrote:

From a Detroit Free Press column on the wire:

Baseball has never needed a 50-homer man more than it does now. It needs something clean and beyond reproach.

What baseball needs now is a club that wins a pennant on hitting-and-running, well-timed doubles and an air-tight defense. I'll always maintain that fans â€” real fans â€” prefer "little ball" to its overstuffed cousin. Home runs are anti-climactic; a ball hit out of the yard stops play, whereas a bases-loaded double or triple has 13 guys in desperate motion for several seconds, as well as the delightful element of uncertainty.

Baseball needs something "clean and beyond reproach" all right, but a 50-homer player isn't it. What it needs are more clubs that play solid, exciting baseball.

KyleJRM · **Posted:** Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:17 am

Oeditpus Rex wrote:

iceman wrote:

From a Detroit Free Press column on the wire:

Baseball has never needed a 50-homer man more than it does now. It needs something clean and beyond reproach.

What baseball needs now is a club that wins a pennant on hitting-and-running, well-timed doubles and an air-tight defense. I'll always maintain that fans â€” real fans â€” prefer "little ball" to its overstuffed cousin. Home runs are anti-climactic; a ball hit out of the yard stops play, whereas a bases-loaded double or triple has 13 guys in desperate motion for several seconds, as well as the delightful element of uncertainty.

Baseball needs something "clean and beyond reproach" all right, but a 50-homer player isn't it. What it needs are more clubs that play solid, exciting baseball.

Home runs are still the most efficient way to score runs, though. "Take and rake", the philosophy of waiting for a mistake pitch and taking a walk or strikeout if you don't get one, is still the most effective way of scoring runs in today's environment.

I agree with you, though, that a less homer-friendly approach would be nice. You just have to raise the mound, put a limit on weight training and deaden the ball.

edit: thank you

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:43 am

Raise the mound, of course.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Fri Feb 25, 2005 12:41 pm

They raised the mound in the early 1960s but lowered it again before the end of the decade. Pitchers certainly benefited during the interim. Did people complain that the game had lost some of its excitement?

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:31 pm

I wasn't quite aware back then, but from what i've read over the years, there were complaints about the lack of scoring, culminating in the drought year of 1968. Shortly thereafter they lowered the mound again and offense picked up.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:16 pm

Yes, people complained loudly and often about the lack of hitting as the 1960s progressed. Lots of strikeouts, not much scoring. Good pitchers seemed great. Some had trouble adjusting when the mound was lowered, but it wasn't that big a deal, aside from batters not having to hit "uphill" all the time.

Expansion and franchise relocations led to a shortage of good pitchers while many games were played in tiny parks. The mound was raised to balance this out. By the end of the 1960s, some of those tiny parks had been replaced and, to some extent, the pitching had caught up. The lowering of the mound brought back some balance.

Harder bats, bigger batters and smaller strike zones have thrown off the balance again.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:13 pm

Wayne Countryman wrote:

Some had trouble adjusting when the mound was lowered, but it wasn't that big a deal, aside from batters not having to hit "uphill" all the time.

Apparently a few hitters had problems, too. In "Ball Four," Jim Bouton quoted a slumping John Kennedy as saying the low mound screwed up his swing. Of course, if the mound had still been 15 inches in 1969, Kennedy, a lifetime .225 hitter, probably would've found something else to blame.

There was also a bit in "Ball Four" about MIT grad Mike Marshall saying the distance from the mound to the plate was shorter with the lower mound, since the hypotenuse of a triangle decreases as either of its other sides decrease. This, Marshall said, would offset any advantage given to hitters. (Marshall later was a victim of what Bouton called "Doubleday's First Law, which states that if you throw a fast ball with insufficient speed, someone will smack it out of the park with a stick.")

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:45 pm

John Kennedy would have been a pretty good singles hitter in a slow-pitch, limited-arc softball league--if given time to adjust. (Adjusting from baseball to slow-pitch softball, especially with unlimited-arc pitching allowed, can be difficult.)

Mike Marshall had a few great years out of the bullpen. He was the world's first famous kinesiologist. That is, he understood what pitching coaches call "mechanics" better than the coaches. He got more out of his natural ability than almost any player.

He also was pretty good for quotes. He was probably joking about his hypotenuse theory. Then again, he wasn't a geometrician or a hitter.

The key to hitting is to notice the spin on the ball as soon as possible, and then get the bat out on the proper plane to hit it. Lowering the mound made both actions easier for hitters. Their adjustment was easier than pitchers'.

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:22 am

In other words, be Ichiro.

Gold · **Joined:** Wed Apr 13, 2005 4:11 pm **Posts:** 4

For the record, Mike Marshall is a graduate of Michigan State University, not MIT. He has a doctorate in kinesiology and has his own website.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:23 pm

Good catch, Gold. I must've been thinking of Jay Hook, who also got a mention in "Ball Four" about over-thinking pitching. (The saying "Don't think, you'll only hurt the ball club" could've been invented for Hook, who went 29-62, 5.23 lifetime and is remembered only for getting the Mets' first win.)

Gold · **Joined:** Wed Apr 13, 2005 4:11 pm **Posts:** 4

I remember Jay Hook returned to the Mets for an Old Timers Day. He got a job designing automobiles for one of the major manufacturers, I think it was General Motors. He talked about that in an interview.

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Only one 50-homer season between 1970 and 1995?

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