Now, you can say the players are better, the parks are smaller and the strike zone is smaller, but I just don t buy it. I think they juiced up the balls to make the game more interesting for the fans. There s another evolution in big league ball that bugs me. It s the propensity for bench-clearing brawls to erupt over a hit batsman. I understand that it probably is not very comfortable being struck by a baseball traveling in excess of 90 mph.
Pitchers are good, but they aren t perfect.
Once in awhile one is going to get away from them. But apparently there s no accommodation for that in baseball anymore. If you get hit, somebody else must get hit. There are no more accidents or mistakes. He was one of the league s tough guys in his day.