to addict little baseball fans everywhere with shredded chewing gum that comes in little foil-lined pouches that look an awful lot like expensive tobacco packaging. Nope. But, that might not be a bad idea for a future post.Today I thought we'd talk about the nature of the game. If you didn't play much growing up, you might not fully understand. Then again, there were plenty of kids that quit when they were seven years old because baseball was too hard. Sometimes they quit because the ball itself was too hard. Ever wonder where the term "Hard Ball" comes from? Baseball is hard ball. Soft ball, and I'm talking here about the leagues full of has-been's and never-were's (one of which I'll be happily joining this fall), might as well be called Easy Ball just to accentuate the difference.
Consider this: The current Major League leader in batting average, Magglio Ordonez, is currently hitting .353. So basically, the man most likely to hit safely in the Majors only gets a hit less than 4 times out of 10. He's out more than 6 times out of 10. The infamous Ty Cobb, the all-time batting average leader at .367 over his career played for 24 season and collected 4191 hits. He got out 64% percent of time, but as far as hitting goes, Cobb was and still is the benchmark. Can you imagine doing anything day in and day out and succeeding about 30% of the time? There are plenty of good, everyday ballplayers in the pros that succeed less than 30% of the time.Sure, there may be hot streaks where a guy may hit .450 for a few games, but not for long. One of the interesting things about the 162 game-season played in the majors is that everything usually evens outs. Guys that should hit about .250, but start the season red-hot, batting .375 over the first month, will usually hit a dry-spell later on, and then even out and finish the season about where his talent says he should be. Then, there are guys who go through the entire season, play maybe every other day for a while, and then maybe only about twice a week, and never pull out of their slump. The back-up catcher for the Royals has a total of 20 hits in 52 games this season. It took Alex Rodriguez 14 games to reach the 20 hit mark. And, after 52 games A-Rod had 19 homeruns.
And it's not just individuals who take a beating in baseball. Look at team records. I tried a search, and then I sorted the all-time team pitching statistics, so, if anyone out there has better data, please share. According to what I found, the team that has won more games than any other is the Giants, obviously including their time in New York. However, the team with the best all-time winning percentage is the New York Yankees with an astounding .569. Over their long history, they have won 9,242, and lost 6,997 games. By the way, this won't come as a surprise to anyone, but if you're looking for a team to root for, don't spend much time considering the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They are owners of the league's worst all-time winning percentage at an abysmal .396.
The point of all of this is whether you play or follow baseball, you have to expect some disappointment. And, when it comes, don't beat yourself up about it. So if you're in a slump, keep trying to hit the ball hard, and sooner or later they'll start to fall. After all, you can't win them all -- and you won't lose them all either.
By the way, if you're having an unproductive moment, check out "Pinch Hitter 2" at the very bottom of this page.
I went into a friends backyard to hit in their batting cage. I think I hit one out of 30 pitches.
ReplyDeleteOh, for the record, I quit baseball because I found out it was heavily frowned upon to hurl your bat at the pitcher when you get beaned. That mofo was the cause of my overbite and he deserved it.
The density of the ball had nothing to do with my leaving the game. I could never find that dang key to the batter's box.
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday Todd!
ReplyDelete