I mean MLB has to do something. I’m used to watching 10 games a week. Now I watch maybe one or 2 a week. When you are losing fans like me, that’s a problem. It’s ridiculous that the reason no one calls out cheating is because your guy is doing it too.
Umps should start tossing guys and then tell the media they have no choice because calling balls and strikes is too hard when some of these pitches are completely unnatural.
It’s real fun watching some 8th string bullpen guy trot in and throw 100 mph with a 2800 rpm rate to strike out the side in between 2 walks. Great product you got MLB.
I’m assuming there is data to back this up. Have you ever seen anything?
I was a big baseball fan through the 90s, followed somewhat 2000-2010, and am a mega casual fan now. Having been “raised” on 90s baseball I have a certain expectation of what a good slider looks like. When I see pitchers in 2021 they are throwing pitches that are like 10 MPH faster and break more than the best sliders in the 90s. I’m assuming that is one key result from the cheating?
Just let the hitters take steroids again and problem solved
A third of teams in MLB are hitting .230 or under. Only five teams are hitting at least .250. Three teams are below .220.
I think spin rates are one reason. It is also related to the massive uppercut, launch angle swings that hitters have learned. With higher spin rates and faster fastballs, pitchers can now live up in the zone because the launch angle swings can’t touch the high heat. That, in turn, makes their breaking stuff, which has gotten nastier and nastier, even more effective.
Does this happen more at baseball than other sports? I think I’ve seen more drunk people at baseball than hockey or basketball. I imagine the NFL is equally full of belligerent drunk fans.
I will say that one thing I have learned as I get older, grayer, fatter and hopefully wiser is that significant trends/outcomes are usually caused by an intersection of numerous factors. People like a simple “one reason” explanation, especially if its a moralizing explanation with villains with Bad Character, but its rarely the case. The doctored balls may be the most significant factor, but there’s probably other factors at play as well.
True. On a basic level, pitchers are simply a ton better than they used to be and hitters swing for the fences every time. Just watch some clips of like mid-1980’s or earlier games. The pitchers move every limb all over the place like they are Octodad, lob the ball up to the plate, and the hitters slap everything the other way while bailing out of the batter’s box.
Then add on spin rate and what-not and hitting has become a lot harder.
Moving fences back 50 feet would solve a lot of problems.
This is very true too
In my early 20’s I would heckle other fans. I was never close to a fist fight though. There was one incident where I actually ran into the guy and his friends at a bar afterwards and apologized for being such an asshole. Only at baseball games though, never at any other sport.
I think that it’s just the amount of time in between action. If I go to a game to this day it’s to bullshit with friends and family and have a few beers.
I’ll do the annoying foreigner thing and say that you guys wouldn’t survive a standard “soccer” fan brawl.
I would avoid that at all cost
I excel at being a coward that disappears whenever a conflict is coming and I still managed to have rocks thrown at me at a bus station after a game. Shattered the glass.
For many years I was your central casting very loud, very drunk, very obnoxious Red Sox fan. Had some great times being the villain at a bunch of different parks, including the cheap seats at the old Yankee Stadium. Only time I was seriously worried for my safety was the Red Sox / Dodgers exhibition game at the Coliseum in LA with 115K in attendance. That was a tough crowd. At one point I tried to go to the bathroom and Raider-fan style guys at the door were like “wrong bathroom” and I just had to move on lol.
Hell yeah, people fucking die in those things. The worst thing to happen in a hockey riot is a car gets flipped over
Many years ago I was on a business trip to Chicago and I went to a Wrigley and bought a single ticket from a scalper. When I got to my seat I was adjacent to a handful of Cards fans that were up from the game. The Cubs fans gave us a bit of a hard time but nothing too rough.
I was at the malice at the palace. I wanted to stay but was with my 8 and 10 year old nephews, so we got out of there fast so we didn’t get caught in a riot. It ended up being about 10 fans fighting players, maybe 100 throwing shit, and the rest of us just peaced on out of there.
