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Facts Are Stubborn Things, Numbers Are Facts

BAD NEWS – THE GAME HAS PROBLEMS. GOOD NEWS - ALL SOLUTIONS ARE KNOWN AND AVAILABLE! Field of Dreams, the fantasy movie, had a mysterious voice saying, “If you build it - he will come.” “Shoeless” Joe Jackson would return with his talented friends to show fans the way his generation played baseball. Sorry, Joe ain’t coming back. Instead, over the past half-century we have been warned by Hall of Fame professionals at every level of the Game, how they feared it was falling into disrepair. Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Earl Weaver, Branch Rickey, and Bill Veeck, along with many others, wrote books, articles, and have been quoted about their concerns. College Baseball Hall of Fame coaches, Skip Bertman - LSU, and Ron Fraser - UofM, taught us in print and by photo how to employ the proper techniques. basil’s baseball presents what all these men brought to aspects of the Game they lived and loved, which is still relevant today. Their warnings, and instructions, were not heeded. The dumbing-down continues. Like Elvis, common sense has left the building. The solutions for many current problems, on and off the fields of Major League Baseball have been known for over 100 years. How MLB implements play, promotion, and presentation of our National Pastime is what it is - past time to reconsider and redirect their efforts to benefit, not damage, the Game’s rich history and future progress. There are no unknowns. NONE! Everything has been seen and done before. As predicted by the professionals, basil’s baseball raises questions about what is now happening. It also provides answers, along with CHARTS, to indicate where we were YESTERDAY, are TODAY, and should be TOMORROW. Baseball’s numbers are what they are, facts. Facts are stubborn things. There are a host of things to discuss, including the All-Star Game, Playoffs, World Series, Designated Hitter, and Saves, to name a few. Reviewed are the rules, assumptions, suppositions, and definitions dominating today’s Game. Let us not forget the years spent willfully, painfully, ignoring use of steroids. You will also see: MLB teams are immersed in a strikeout epidemic; forgotten, or never learned, some of the proper techniques of base running and fielding; evidently, don’t practice the skills needed to defeat the drastic defensive infield shifts currently being employed; have bunting slowly, surely, going the way of the dodo bird, and have attached a completely foreign mind-set to all aspects of pitching. These issues can and should be addressed, prior to arriving in the Major Leagues. The evidence is in – they aren’t. The author draws his own conclusions about what could be described as the Dead Brain Era. Agree, or disagree. Fine! You may have your own questions, or better answers to ones being asked. Great! There’s an oft-repeated observation about baseball these days, “That’s just the way they do things now.” That “now” way is real, is wrong, and no one cares it’s wrong. Worse, no one cares that no one cares. If it matters to you, in these days of social media there are many ways the powers in charge can be influenced to change course. It won’t be easy, but please, let them know your opinions.

In 1968, Williams wrote The Science of Hitting, saying, “Everybody’s trying to pull the damn ball, to begin with, trying to hit home runs. They don’t protect themselves with two strikes – they don’t shorten up with the bat, they don’t think about hitting through the box, getting wood on the ball. They’re still up there swinging from their rear end. They think about that big powerful swing, but not about being quick with the bat. They don’t do their homework - on the pitcher, on the situation, on the game. They’re not selective. They swing at bad pitches, and that’s the first rule in the book; Get a good ball to hit. Most of all, they don’t have any idea what the little game between pitcher and hitter is all about.”