Posted on 02/23/2015 7:46:15 PM PST by Forgotten Amendments
There has been a recent move in the MLB to introduce an "Illegal Defense" rule because of "new" shifts ... that actually date back to 1877.....
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
This is not trivial. The "suits" want to ruin baseball like they did the NFL, PGA, and NASCAR.
He was a sports commentator before he got into politics , IIRC.
They should also reverse the “blocking home plate” rule, along with “in the vicinity of second base” b.s. too.
I don’t even want to think about the d.h. crap for the National League.
There was a player back in the 60s, I think it was Rocky Colavito but am not sure, who pulled the ball so regularly that they placed all the infielders and outfielders to the left of center field. Only the first baseman stayed.
If you want to restore balance to baseball, get rid of designated positions. There are nine positions, and nine innings. Rotate everybody through each position, every inning.
Every player in the lineup would pitch one inning, cover third one inning, etc.
The answer to the “shift” is of course, for hitters to learn to hit to the opposite field. Something that the Cardinals’ Matt Adams learned to do, quite effectively.
If hitters could bunt or hit the ball to the opposite field, these shifts would go away. My frustration is with the REFUSAL of the hitters to adjust to the defenses.
A broken clock is right twice a day:
“The beauty of baseball is its oxymoronic balance between muscle and strategy.”
“The fact that identical lineups can play a one-nothing opener in a double-header, take twenty minutes off, and then the same guys can produce a 17-15 barnburner.”
The stupidity... it hurts.
Even more significant:
Does anything better prove the adage that every liberal is a conservative in his own field than the fact that Olberman is incensed that someone is changing a rule?
The amazing thing is that it took so long for defenses to adopt shifts for players who can only hit the ball one way. It’s been used in the past, but only very sporadically.
Let me emphasize:
Does anything better prove the adage that every liberal is a conservative in his own field than the fact that Olbermann is incensed that someone is changing a rule?
Here Olbermann is decrying new rules, taking a “tough shift” attitude towards people who can’t handle competition, pining for the old days...
Absolutely! Can you imagine what Ichiro would do to a "shift"?
We've had a generation of players being trained and scouted for power only. Guys like Matty Alou or Brett Butler would never get a look today :(
It looks like REAL hitters (like they have in Japan) can be back in fashion. Unless they mess with the rules.
wow
That is profound! And so true.
Thanks!!!!!
Allow the pitchers to throw inside and there would be less guys standing on top if the plate trying to yank everything over the fence.
Ty Cobb who had the highest batting average in history, used a splt hand grip. If he decided to pull the ball he would slide the bottom hand up to the top. Just the opposite to push it.
He hit over 400 three times.
I remember after the Schilling "Bloody Sock" game, reporters asked, "Why didn't you just bunt on Schilling?"
BOTH Jeter and Torre (who should've been old school) replied, "It's not our style."
Which was the Mighty Casey's lingo. With the same result.
And the rumbling was Ty Cobb spinning ...
He is usually pretty good with baseball, I agree. I think Manrfed was just putting the shift thing out there as an example that he was willing ‘to think out of the box.’ Yeah, it would be stupid.
The whole problem stems from really depressed run scoring due to the most strike outs ever while the games are taking longer than they ever have. I really doubt they are going to do anything with shifts. In NFL and NBA, they upped offense to attract the lowest denominator fan. To them scoring = excitement. It worked for football, it’s more popular now than ever. But with baseball it’s really hard to increase ‘action’ and runs without making the games even longer.
Freegards
Olberman is a lefty nitwit but he does know baseball.
I always liked him on sports, he’s far too stupid for real politics.
The thing with the shift is that average babip (batting average of balls in play) has remained the same since the drastic shifts. So it hurts extreme pull hitters, especially lefties, but it must be hurting defense too. The thing that is not the same are strike outs, they are way up.
Freegards
Boudreau shift Boudreau is credited with inventing the infield shift, which came to be known colloquially as the "Boudreau shift." Because slugging Red Sox superstar Ted Williams was a dead-pull hitter, he moved most of his Cleveland Indian fielders to the right of second base against the Splendid Splinter, leaving only the third baseman and left fielder to the left of second but also very close to second base, far to the right of their normal positions. With characteristic stubborn pride, Teddy Ballgame refused the obvious advice from teammates to hit or bunt to left against the Boudreau shift, but great hitter that he was, not changing his approach against the shift didn't affect his hitting very much. Boudreau later admitted that the shift was more about "psyching out" Williams rather than playing him to pull. "I always considered the Boudreau shift a psychological, rather than a tactical [ploy]," he declared in his autobiography Player-Manager.
I think it took so long for this to develop for a couple of reasons. First of all, I’m not sure exactly how effective a shift is when it comes to reducing the effectiveness of a hitter. Most of the hitters who are targeted by these shifts are power hitters, so it’s not like they’re grounding most of their hits between infielders. Secondly, I suspect a lot of managers are reluctant to implement a shift because it can easily backfire — even by mistake (if a hitter doesn’t get good wood on the ball and dribbles it to the opposite field, for example).
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