It’s
not what you don't know that gets you in trouble; it’s what you know
for sure that isn't so.
Al Smith,
In 1900 the population of the United States was about 100 million,
ten percent of whom were black.
That leaves 45 million white American
males. At 16 teams and 320 players,
every player represented the best of about 140,000 white U.S. males.
Today the U.S. population has topped 300 million, and Caribbean countries
add another 160 million, for a total of 460 million, or 230 million
males. With 30 teams and 750
players (rosters are larger now), each player represents the best of over
300,000 western hemisphere males of all colors.
The number of players has doubled, but the pool of male babies has
gone up five-fold. Thus the
odds against growing up to play in the Major Leagues has more than
doubled.
And that doesn't count Asia’s teeming millions, who are beginning
to push U.S. and Latin players out of jobs.
The stunning success of the rest of the world in the 2006 World Baseball
Championship dramatized that today we're watching a caliber of baseball that
great grandpop couldn't have dreamed of.
About half the pitchers in Cobb’s and Ruth’s day couldn't have
made a big league roster today.
And the other half might not have made it either – they'd be too
small. In 1952 Bobby Shantz
(139 pounds) won 24 games; today his high school coach wouldn't even look
at him. In 1884 “Ol’
Hoss” Radbourne won 60 games; the “hoss” weighed in at
168. Ten years later Hugh Duffy
batted .440 and led the league in homers; he stood 5’7’ and weighed
less than David Eckstein. Wee
Willie Keeler batted .424 and weighed
140. Cobb was a heavyweight
at 175.
If Keeler, Cobb, and Ruth (212) posed next to today’s Frank Thomas
(270) and David Ortiz (officially 230), people would snicker, “Who are
all those little runts?”
The blacks and Latins have given baseball a huge qualitative, as well
as quantitative, boost. “I'd
have shaved a few points off those high batting averages,” Satchel Paige
said. So would Bullet Joe Rogan, Smoky Joe Williams, and many
more black stars. There hasn't
been a 400-hitter since integration; that's probably not a
coincidence. Only three less
hits would have cost Ted Williams his .406 in
1941. Cobb, Hornsby, Harry Heilmann,
and Bill Terry would probably also have lost .400
seasons.
How many homers would Ruth have lost in an integrated
league? In 1927 he might have
hit 54 instead of 60. And a black slugger like the new Hall of Famer, Mule Suttles,
might have hit 55, taking Ruth’s title away, as well as his
record.
It’s true that football and other sports have siphoned off some potential
baseball talent. However, football
and basketball players tend to be heavier or taller than the ideal baseball
player. One could wipe out the
NFL and NBA and hardly make a dent in the rosters of Major League
baseball.
In fact, I have my doubts that Ty and Babe could break into today’s
Tiger or Yankee outfields against the bigger, stronger, faster, athletes
of 2007.
Babe’s only body-building exercise consisted of lifting
beers.
He used to walk up on the pitch.
Ty held his hands apart until the ball was halfway to the
plate. They couldn't do that
against today’s hurlers. By today’s standards they weren't professionals,
they were amateurs who got paid.
The Olympics make this clear.
Johnny “Tarzan” Weismueller, the 1924 Gold medalist in swimming,
couldn't make the U.S. team today – I mean the women’s
team. If his mate,
Jane, were threatened by ravenous crocodiles 400 meters away, Janet Evans
could splash to her aid a minute faster than Johnny; by the time he arrived,
she would be swinging away through the jungle, ululating
triumphantly.
The winner of the men’s marathon that year would have finished
26th in the women’s race in 1984.
To return to the competitive conditions of a century ago, baseball would
have to double the number of big league
teams. The talk of
“contraction” by two teams a few years ago would have drawn the
population noose even tighter around the throats of today’s players,
making it even tougher to get a big league job, let alone to stand out as
Cobb and Ruth did.
If we do double the number of teams, we'll see the return of the .400
hitter, and we'll see other records go through the sky-dome
roofs. Expansion is the ultimate
steroid.
To put it another way, the records of Cobb, Ruth etc, which were once
protected by segregation, are now protected by the population explosion.
Today we're watching the best athletes who ever played the
game. And our grandchildren
will watch even bigger and better
ones. Seven-foot 300-pound
players will not be uncommon, without
steroids. To keep records more or less stable, the game will probably
have to move the pitching distance back ten feet, lengthen the base paths
to 100 feet, move the fences out to 380 feet at the foul lines and 480 in
center. We can anticipate a
third Major League in Asia etc.
As for salaries and the price of a bleacher ticket and hot dog, hold
your hat.
