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Sports Watch
SO, Major League Baseball is funding a scientific study to see if today's baseball has been juiced up, resulting in all these home runs we're seeing this season. No more chin music,
more homersNot only is Mark McGwire popping baseballs out of the ballpark. He hit three Thursday to pass Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays on the same night.
With his characteristic, one-handed follow through, no less.
Nowadays everyone is hitting home runs.
More home runs (931) were hit in April than any first month in major-league history. At this rate, there will be 6,000 cranked out of the ballparks this season.
Who knows how many countless more when you add all of the minor league teams as well?
The major-domos should save their money, studying if baseballs are juiced up like Top Flites. There's no conspiracy theory, although fans love the long ball instead of good pitching.
Instead, they should spend the money hiring more pitching coaches.
PITCHING has become a lost art, even though there are several great practitioners, notable Arizona's Randy Johnson and Boston's Pedro Martinez, who both have allowed less than one earned run a game so far this season.
There are two reasons for the dearth of good pitching in baseball today.
The first is expansion. When there were only 16 teams in the majors, the pitching profession had around 160 full-fledged members.
With expansion, the pitching talent has diluted.
Now, there are 16 teams in the National League alone. Add the 15 American League clubs, you have a total of 31 teams requiring 10-man pitching staffs.
Suddenly, there's a need for some 310 pitchers. And, judging by the high ERA's and home runs allowed these days, God never intended for that many pitchers to make a living as a major-leaguer.
So we have working stiffs like Jose Lima, who already has allowed 17 dingers in his first eight starts, starting every fifth day for the Houston Astros despite an 8.49 ERA.
He's headed for a 20-game losing season. But you know? Losing 20 games a year is not as ignominious as it once used to be.
The mentality these days, albeit a foxhole one, is that you've got to be a pretty good pitcher to be able to lose 20 games because the team wants him to keep taking his turn.
The second reason is because the batters are not afraid to dig in at the plate and take their cut at the ball.
Now, a brush-back pitch after a warning would lead to an ejection, a fine and possibly a free-for-all.
Baseball has gotten too wimpy in that regard.
I used to remember a former Hawaii Islander pitcher named Jim Coates, who used to pitch for the New York Yankees.
Coates never had an inside pitch he didn't love. Any batter crowding the plate would be on his ass the next pitch.
"They're taking bread out of my family's mouth," Coates used to say.
Sure, today's ballplayers are bigger and stronger, and striking out a lot isn't the stigma it used to be. But too much has been taken away from today's pitchers, giving batters a decided advantage.
So hitters shouldn't whine at pitches that knock them down to keep them loose at the plate as long as they're not thrown at the head.
And neither should major-league baseball.
The poor pitcher is only trying to do his job. Don't take away his best weapon -- an occasional high, hard one inside.
Bill Kwon has been writing about
sports for the Star-Bulletin since 1959.