Gary Sheffield was one of the most feared players at bat during his more than 20 seasons in Major League Baseball, but the nine-time All-Star recently revealed that he doesn't even watch anymore because he's "disappointed" in how the game has developed.
www.foxnews.com
I kind of agree with Gary Sheffield that the rule changes have made baseball less appealing. Hitters are giving a pass for striking out if they can hit home runs. Pitch counts and other limits put on pitchers....
I have always found small ball more appealing. The strategy, stolen bases, bunting (remember that?), hit & run....
And also like Gary Sheffield I don't want to come across as somebody complaining about the greatest game God ever created.
Malaria Kidd, great story. I posted an article somewhere in this thread about when Bill Veecke owned the White Sox the first time around. The team was very fast but could do little else. He had the groundskeepers grow the grass way up high to slow down the ball, and they actually shortened the bases by one foot. That way the fast Runners had a better chance of beating the tag out.
There's also another Thread about a baseball novel imagining that all of Bill Veecks crazy stunts happened in 1 season.
The End of Baseball " by Peter Schilling Junior.
The upshot is that when he owned the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1940s there was a contract that he had to put on a winning team. So he hired a Negro League All-Star team as his team. You get to learn a lot about these players and how they lived and what they went through. Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell are all in there.