Going, Going, Gone! … It’s a Single
I cannot remember as many balls rocketing off outfield fences resulting in long singles as I’ve seen this season. Going, going, gone … it’s a single.
Part of the reason is superior outfield defense corralling the ball and firing it back to second base. Part of it is the scary fast charge that hitters plug into baseballs that touch their bats before barreling into outfield fences. And part of it is the increase in hot-dogging it out of the batter’s box, wasting valuable seconds during the blast rather than running hard to first base. Rather than waiting to see the replay of the shot after the game.
It seems, almost every game, someone hits a bullet off the wall that should have been a double. I saw a couple this week hit the top of the fence, just missing being a home run. The batter ending up on first base. Going, going, gone … it’s a single.
Harmon Killebrew’ Blast
There was a game I remember attending at the old Yankee Stadium sometime in the mid-1960s. This was before the Stadium was renovated in 1973-1975 and the fences were moved in.
In this game, powerful right-handed, pull-hitter Harmon Killebrew, who was built like a Sherman tank, dug into the batter’s box and took his practice strokes.
As he swung, he gazed out at the power alleys in the old Stadium, 407 feet to right-center field, 461 feet to center field and 457 feet to left-center field. He invariably saw Monument Park, the collection of bronze plaques and headstones grouped together on the field in dead center field behind the flag pole. These bronzes were testimonials to some of the great Yankees players and managers of the past. And they sat a few feet less than 461 feet away. (Today Monument, Park is a monitored section open to the public at certain times, between the bullpens behind the left-center field fence.)
Killebrew was a home run threat every time he stepped into the batter’s box. When he got his pitch, he swung and launched a massive fly ball that landed one bounce before tumbling behind the monuments in dead center field (at that time). The Yankee center fielder finally reached the ball, threw it in, and Killebrew chugged into third base with a triple. Winded. It was a close play because Killebrew was not fleet afoot.
Anyone with any speed would have had an inside the park home run. Or, in any other ballpark, Killebrew’s prodigious blast would have cleared the fence for a home run.
Why all the Singles?
Because, in many ways, today’s baseball is a players’ game. No Reserve Clause. Management does not carry the same clout as it did during the Reserve Clause years. Teams willingly pay big money to players who produce offensive outbursts, and hard-hit balls are an integral part of offensive outbursts. Launch angles. Exit velocities. These are the new offensive hocus-pocus teams reward.
Not that there weren’t hard-hit balls 50 years ago, but those days, and before, not every player was a home run hitter. Shortstops and second baseman tended to be slap hitters. Singles hitters. And if they banged one against the wall, they ran hard out of the box.
On losing teams, home run hitters (Ralph Kiner comes to mind) were not viewed as entertainers, but as expensive albatrosses the team did not need to finish in the cellar when a younger (cheaper) player could be installed and nurtured.
Do the Pirates really need Josh Bell to be as bad as they are? Or Eugenio Suarez in Cincinnati? The Orioles should have traded Trey Mancini last month. They are terrible with him, they could be terrible (and deeper in their minor league system) without him. Some call this tanking, but it’s an effective method to improve in a dog-eat-dog business.
In the past, players like Luis Aparicio, Maury Wills, Bud Harrelson, Mark Belanger, Pee Wee Reese, Phil Rizzuto, Pete Rose and Lou Boudreau hustled when they hit the ball. They ran hard out of the batter’s box. There was no gawking or watching the ball as they pirouetted to first base, as Robinson Cano has made a career out of. These players were defense first, then offense.
Baseball has turned the old model on its head.
When Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays or Rocky Colavito stared at a blast, it was usually long gone.
Today, bat-flipping and showing-up the pitcher are par for the course. There’s no Don Drysdale or Bob Gibson or Nolan Ryan to intentionally stick one in a hitter’s ribs. No one to play some chin music for the hitter’s benefit. Take away predators, prey increase in size and number. If there was more chin music in baseball, gawking and showboating might become anachronisms.
Then There’s Ernesto Natali Lombardi
Ernie Lombardi to you.
Lombardi was a Hall of Fame catcher who toiled mightily for the Cincinnati Reds, among other teams in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a powerful hitter. A great hitter. But he was also one of the slowest runners in the game.
So, when the right-handed hitting Lombardi smashed line drives into right field he was quite often thrown out at first base as he lumbered down the line. True.
I cannot remember seeing any batter thrown out at first base on a single to right in all my days of watching the game. But I’ve seen runners take less than their clout should have merited. Sometimes because of a lack of speed. Which is why there are so few triples in MLB. Add in the regularity of today’s baseball stadiums without irregular corners and slopes (like the triangle in deepest centerfield in Fenway Park where a ball can rattle around and get lost so even the slowest player can notch a triple), and baseball has too many easy outfields to field and not enough places for the ball to keep rolling. Rolling is excitement.
The New Expression
Of course, nowadays, no one can make players hustle to first base. No one can stop them from showboating out of the batter’s box. Perhaps some players don’t understand that doubles beef up their OPS+. Regardless of what management has to say.
Then again, they’re hot-dogging it out of the box to highlight what they think is a home run. Home runs mean lots of money (for multi-talented players). Home runs really beef up OPS+ statistics. Hitters know this. And because baseball is now sport as well as entertainment, there has to be some leeway for personal expression.
Singles off the wall is that new expression. Going, going, gone … it’s a single.
