Reese Kaplan -- The Game Has Changed a Lot Over Time...

This week apparently SNY was broadcasting the 1969 World Series between the Mets and the Orioles.  While I don’t have that particular broadcast network available to me out here, I got quite the earful from chat buddies commenting on how much things have changed between then and now, what it was like seeing Tom Seaver in his prime and how the approach to the game has changed.  That latter thought really got me thinking about some of the issues raised.

For one thing, there is the matter of what one of the contributors deemed “The Tommy John Quartet” regarding the Mets’ current starting rotation, comparing it to the period back then when pitchers were allowed to remain in the game without fret about pitch counts, throwing velocity and relative health. 

Think about how pitchers are evaluated, trained, maintained and video cataloged these days from their Little League days, school performances, college, minor leagues and the majors.  It’s almost as if Tommy John Surgery is an expected part of the development schedule, along with a pitching coach running out to the mound to remove a pitcher in the process of becoming a pro, regardless of the score or situation simply to adhere to an arbitrary pitch count total.  It’s interesting to notice how that it was assumed every single athlete grew, matured and tired at the exact same pace, rather than treating them as individuals.  

To a large extent, once a starter, always a starter was the mantra for positional players.  You could have an anemic bat but if your fielding and baserunning were sufficient, then you would be penciled into the lineup day after day.  Think about a guy like Bud Harrelson who was a career hitter of just .236, his highest HR total was 1 in irregular years, and once he hit as many as 42 RBIs.  He did twice exceed the 20 SB mark, but that was it for his career.  Granted, the NY Mets were not exactly filled with All-Star caliber offensive players, though Harrelson did earn the honor twice.  Still, it’s hard to imagine these days a player with such limited offensive ability being a regular for most of his 16 seasons in the big leagues.  After all, players like Ruben Tejada can’t even stick in the majors while producing far more offensively.  

Bullpens were always a work in progress back then, too.  With rare exception, relief pitchers were failed starters who took the mop-up role when the starter was unable to perform to expectation.  There were no middle innings guys, no setup men, no 8th inning specialists, no ROOGYs or LOOGYs and very few true closers.  No one even reached the 30-save plateau until Dave Giusti with the Pirates in 1971.  

Of course, there was no Designated Hitter back then, either.  That meant pitchers had to learn how to contribute during their plate appearances and managers had to figure out what to do when a mostly useless at-bat was going to take place in the middle of an inning.  It’s no surprise that the DH escalated the offensive production in the AL at the expense of strategy (and gave long playing careers to guys who were past their prime or simply ineffective defensively).  

Mostly, however, I remember managerial effort being a whole lot more present than it is behind the advanced scouting as it is today.  You’d win some, you’d lose some, but at least decisions were being made and not merely spoken through a headset from someone in the sabermetrics department.  

What do you remember about  baseball in the past that you miss now?