Tag: mlb
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The Baseball Attendance Myth
“Statistics do not lie but liars use statistics” Major League Baseball has continued to promote that it is back and better than ever, mostly by stating that rules changes employed in 2022 have helped to increase attendance at ballparks. Those rule changes included the implementation of the pitch clock, extra inning ghost runner, and the limitation…
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The Bird Who Captured Baseball
By Bill Coleman The Unforgettable Summer of Mark Fidrych By the summer of 1976, baseball needed something unexpected. Free agency was arriving. Television was changing sports. Attendance in some cities felt flat. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a young pitcher with blond curls, endless energy and a habit of talking to baseballs became the most…
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Stolen Bases*
The number of stolen bases in baseball has fluctuated greatly over time. Some of those periods and the causes of those fluctuations include: The latest change in stolen base activity occurred with the introduction of analytics into the game in the early 2000’s. Prior to that, in the 1990’s there were regularly more than 3,000 successful…
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Less is More
We are all excited that a new baseball season has just begun. With that said, it will not be too long before some of us will be asking how much is enough? For comparison purposes let’s look at the current and recent seasons, as well as seasons from the past in terms of length. The…
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Celebrity Baseball Spotlight Series: The Rifleman
Chuck Connors, the movie and television actor was most famous for his role in The Rifleman, but before that he had a fascinating journey through the sports world. Connors made his mark in the history books as one of only 14 people ever to have played both in Major League Baseball (MLB) and in the…
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Money is Everything
Back in late November, New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner stated his preference for lowering his team’s overall payroll for the upcoming 2026 season. There was a lot to take from this interview but for the purposes of this post we will ignore what Steinbrenner talked about in terms of the Yankees and will focus…
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Baseball’s Problem
Major league baseball’s biggest problem can be seen most prominently and surprisingly in one of their more successful franchises, the Milwaukee Brewers. The good news is that the Brewers have made the postseason for past three years and qualified for the playoffs seven times in the last eight years. Unfortunately, they are also a small…
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Celebrity Baseball Spotlight Series: Mario Cuomo
As part of our ongoing series of celebrities (which we have extended to politicians for this piece) that played either major or minor league baseball, we now present Mario Cuomo, who was the 52nd governor of New York, serving three terms from 1983 to 1994. In addition, Cuomo was previously the lieutenant governor from 1979…
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The Death of Sign Stealing – Part 1
Another aspect of MLB meddling in the fundamentals of the game, which has led to the …… dehumanization, standardization, homogenization, and over-regulation of baseball has been the introduction of Pitchcom. For those of you not aware of Pitchcom here is a bit of history: PitchCom is a wireless communication system used in baseball that lets…
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Wins and Innings
On October 31, 1973 Tom Seaver of the New York Mets became the first Cy Young winner to not win at least 20 games. Seaver only missed that mark by one win after recording a record of 19-10 for the 1973 season. How times have changed. There has not been a 20 game Cy Young…
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Yellow Uniforms Revisited
Recently we posted about the god awful yellow uniforms that the Boston Red Sox wear as part of MLB’s city connect series. We noted there were references online about how popular these bright yellow jerseys were with the fans. “Ok, we get it. People like the yellow”. “Given the popularity of our yellow uniforms with…
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The Natural
One of our favorite baseball movies is The Natural from 1984 starring Robert Redford as the fictional player Roy Hobbs. Truly an inspirational film and one that even a non-baseball fan would love. We remember this iconic film, since we feel it accurately juxtaposes the love of the game from the BP, many fans, and…