Posted on 05/01/2021 8:03:04 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Fifty years ago, baseball was more entertaining than it is now, in my opinion. Walks, strikeouts, and home runs may (or may not) be baseball’s only “true outcomes,” but they are less fun to watch than fielding gems, triples, and the hit-and-run.
Unfortunately, the analytics revolution has made the hit-and-run nearly extinct. And its emphasis on strikeouts and home runs means fewer balls in play, and thus less excitement on the bases and in the field.
Yet, as entertaining as baseball was fifty years ago, games were not that well attended — not nearly as well attended as they are today. Consider the four-game series (Monday-Thursday) between the Baltimore Orioles and the Oakland A’s, played in Oakland beginning on April 26, 1971.
These were hands down the best two teams in the American League, and arguably in baseball. The Orioles were the defending world champions. During the previous two seasons, they had won a combined 217 regular season games. As the April series with the A’s began, they once again were in first place in the American League East.
The A’s were just coming into their own. In 1971, they would win the first of five consecutive American West titles, in between which would be sandwiched three consecutive world championships. They entered the series against the Orioles with a 14-6 record, best in the American League.
Nonetheless, the combined attendance for the four games was only 20,000. In 2019, only six teams averaged less than that number per game. (Oakland’s season attendance in 1971 was only 915,000; Baltimore’s was 1,023,000.)
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
There is one CBC telecast that survived from 1970 Pittsburgh at Montreal at Parc Jarry late in the season. YouTube had it.
"Fenway Park on its feet for Teddy ......' Ballgame! He went yardo on that one, out to f....' Lansdowne Street!”
That was my team. My brother (a Reds fan) and I would eagerly await the arrival of the Sporting News because it had team and individual stats you could not find anywhere else. One of the stats was attendance and as I recall two million per year was rare and many teams had abysmal attendance compared to recent years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izL-bernMwQ
1962 All-Star Game at (then called) DC Stadium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izL-bernMwQ
1970 Pirates at Expos from Parc Jarry, Montreal
This is happening in almost every sport now. Even in soccer, there are new players but unless their name is Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, there’s nothing distinghuishable about them.
a few of the older parks had an incline rise in the outfield - used as a warning” track - crosley was one.
my uncle was a tribune truck driver delivering newspapers. Big baseball fan. Big Sox fan. Tribune had a deal with the White Sox - coupon and 25 cents got any empty seat in the lower or upper grandstand(if open) any day during the week at old Comiskey. So we spent most of our baseball game time at Wrigley...go figure.
Plus Sporting News had minor league stats, so you could track the progress of guys you would see in a few years.
My best friend’s older brother played high school baseball with Ron Cey in Tacoma, mid-60’s IIRC. The Penguin.
I fondly remember the Washington Senators, with Ted Williams as manager.
I grew up in that area, and went to many games at RFK stadium.
The atmosphere at the ballpark is so different now. Among my memories are of talking baseball with fellow fans. So many fans today are taking selfies and playing with a cellular phone.
It was nice to talk baseball with knowledgeable fans back then. I remember a couple of older black men who frequently were there, and I would go sit with them in general admission seats. I learned a lot about the old Negro leagues from them.
“...there’s nothing distinghuishable about them.”
Excerpt at the pay check, the mark of success. But how come everyone is a star and deserves star wages that were ridiculous to begin with? Since we are talking about baseball, let’s look at the display of success versus recognition. Success is based in dollars since the job can’t be compared.
The average paid player in baseball in 2019 which was the last full year before covid really set in and clobbered the income is around $4.36 million dollars. The average income for people in the US is $87,864 in 2019 which during the same time frame.
I was a military troop. At the end of my career, when I was retiring after 32 years of service, I was making around $90K as year. I guess success isn’t a part of the equation as the average average is over $25M more than I made at the average of my career field.
When I lived in the Bay Area, I used to go to A’s games and pay $2 for a bleacher seat. Sometimes a day game would have about 2,000 fans in attendance. This was in the 1970s.
The Sporting News for current stats. The gigantic Baseball Encyclopedia for the stats of everyone who ever played in the majors. Plus we relied on baseball cards for stats. Now everything is available on line in real time for free. And many of the stats that we followed are no longer held in esteem and have been replaced and supplemented by all kinds of new metrics. Does all this make the game more enjoyable? I’m not so sure.
Here is one view of the Polo Grounds. I am guessing the bleacher seats you referred to in your post are around where the beer advertisement is. Yankee Stadium is, of course, in the upper right hand corner of photo.
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