The game has changed, the game never changes

Just finished reading a pretty good baseball book, Fifty-Nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had, by Edward Achorn.  It’s about what the subtitle says, the season of 1884, when Charlie Radbourn won 59 games for the World Champion Providence Grays, having started 73.

He completed all 73 too.

Season before he started 76 but he only finished 68 and won 49.

Only.

You might be asking yourself how come his arm didn’t fall off?

It more or less did.

Read the book.

But the interesting thing is that although obviously things were different 125 years ago---besides the fact that teams would go through entire 100 or so game seasons relying on only two or three pitchers---for the last third 1884, the Grays had essentially just one---fielders didn’t wear gloves, pitchers threw underhand or sidearm, throwing overhand was considered poor sportsmanship, foul balls weren’t counted as strikes---the baseball they played was recognizably, comfortingly baseball as it is still played.  Judging by the contemporary newspaper accounts Achorn draws from the rhythms of the game, of an inning, of a season were much the same as they are now, the drama of a pennant race played out in a very familiar way.

Last night I started reading Jonathan Mahler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, which as its subtitle says is more than a baseball book, but has baseball at its center, and I came across this about Reggie Jackson:

Reggie hit .289 that year [1974], with 29 home runs, 93 RBIs, and 25 stolen bases.  It was an impressive season, and [Oakland A’s owner Charlie] Finley rewarded him with a $5000 raise, bringing his salary up to $140,000.  In ‘75 Jackson hit a league-leading 36 home runs with 104 RBIs.

In ‘73, the year Jackson was voted MVP he hit .293 and drove in 117 runs.  He smacked 32 balls out of the park.

At the moment, with two months left in the season, Jose Bautista has already hit 32 home runs and driven in 82 runs.  Josh Hamilton has only 23 home runs and 75 RBI.  But he’s batting .362.

Over in the National League, Joey Voto is hitting .322 with 27 home runs and 72 RBI.  Albert Pujols has 26 home runs and driven in 75 runs.

What I’m getting at is that Reggie Jackson was one of the four or five scariest hitters in the early 70s with numbers that would make a hitter with similar numbers (Bautista, for instance) just one star among more than a dozen other stars as bright or brighter.

Plus, most of these guys today can actually play their positions.

I don’t mean to slight Reggie.  Well, except as an outfielder.  All I’m pointing out is that in 40 years the game has changed.

The game always changes.

And it never changes.

Just ask Old Hoss Radbourn.

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Technorati Tags: baseball,Reggie Jackson,Old Hoss Radbourn,Edward Achorn,Jonathan Mahler,Ladies and Gentlemen,The Bronx Is Burning,Fifty-nine in -84

Comments

[Dave MB]

Lance -- a book you might like is If I Never Get Back by Darryl Brock, a 1989 fantasy novel in the style of Jack Finney's Time and Again. A down-and-out modern ex-baseball player steps off a train in Ohio, and when he steps back on he is in 1876, with the Cincinnatti Redlegs as they start their epochal tour of the east. Of course the sport the Redlegs call "baseball" is not at all what we play today...

[dave]

Throwing underhand places far far less stress on the arm as throwing overhand. I would bet that even Pedro Martinez could pitch underhand nearly everyday without injury.

[actor212]

Lance, keep in mind the spitter and other trick pitches were allowed, the ball was mushy and couldn't be hit out of the park or with any real authority (the MLB record when Ruth hit 27 HRs was....8), and well...umpires could be bribed or bought.

Also, imagine Reggie on roids...

[uncle rameau]

go now and read joe posnanski's latest, about Eric Walker and the whole roids thing...

and playing vintage baseball is just about the coolest thing since... uh... civil war reenacting? ok, bad analogy... no, actually, pretty spot on, regrettably...

go Tecumsehs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!