Those Were The Days, My Friend

Not so many years ago -- even then Warren Buffett was a skajillionaire encamped in Omaha -- musical artists recorded "albums" of songs, sometimes themed, that were copied from master recordings onto pressed vinyl and sold to adoring masses in record stores. Radio stations, at intervals dictated by record companies, played individual songs from the albums to whet fans' appetites for the larger recordings. Consumers learned about music almost entirely from the radio and often purchased the albums without the benefit of hearing most of their contents.

If the music business was an apple then, today it is a platypus. We listen to streaming songscapes on our phones these days and procure, often for free, individual songs directly to our playing devices. We have innumerable options for test-driving the music before owning it. Radio has become irrelevant and is disappearing like Jimmy Hoffa.

Because baseball has evolved a lesser distance since the 1970s, say from great apes rather than from single-celled organisms, the differences have been easier to ignore. But the rise of the uber-athlete has transformed the game, and it's time to start accounting for it.

In the days of albums and radio stations, itinerant athletes with opposable winter jobs roamed the infield at 11 or 12 stones soaking wet. Many of these players arrived in Spring Training for their first calisthenics in months and even by the dog days couldn't reach the outfield wall with two swings. The local team of my youth, the 1970 Mets, one year after Amazing the world, sported a starting lineup of Jerry Grote, 185 pounds and two home runs; Ken Boswell, 175 pounds and five home runs; and Bud Harrelson, 160 pounds, one home run. Utility infielder Al Weiss, 160 pounds and one home run, backed them up.

It was a hurler's delight. The opposing moundsman could ease up against these Lilliputians, allowing pitchers the equivalent of an inning's repose every third frame. Throwing with less ferocity and resting more often allowed starters to double as finishers and accumulate innings like corporate titans with summer homes.

Ironically, everyday players today are presenting attendance issues. As this excellent article in Beyond the Box Score notes, the number of regulars appearing in 150+ games has descended below 9% for the first time since the schedule expanded to 162 games in 1961. (Fourteen times before that, with just a 154-game schedule, more than 9% of regulars reached the 150-game mark.) I leave the wherefores to wiser analysts, though the increasing prevalence of platooning, match-ups, defensive replacements and more older players requiring episodic breathers probably play a role.

The result, as author Scott Lindholm articulates in the BTBS piece, is that many of the old records will prove as resistant to change as a Congressman. Measured against a 300-win standard, or even a 20-win standard, today's pitchers will prove as endlessly wanting as the Oscars. Benchmarks for innings pitched, complete games and strikeouts; and for everyday players, consecutive games played, hits and perhaps even home runs will prove more difficult to reach than heaven for a TV preacher. Not withstanding that, like the oily religio-salesman, many of the records in question are poseurs to begin with.

You've probably noticed that the units of measurement above rarely tickle the ivories of Hall of Fame compositions in this space, and the artificial thresholds of 3,000 hits, 300 wins, 500 home runs and their ilk are as welcome here as Palmetto bugs at an oyster roast, which is a quaint Southern way of saying filthy cockroaches on performance enhancing drugs doing the cha-cha at a fancy Epicurean tradition. Going forward let's just banish them from our consciousness, even from our sub-consciousness, and lean instead on the sturdy frames of wOBA, TAv, FIP, WAR and their many cousins, step-sisters and other kin.

And then someday we'll examine why the greatest athletes in history (today's) can't stay upright the way their ballplaying ancestors could.

Lots of Hits From These Three Records

Three notable accomplishments are in the news these days -- Ichiro's 2000th hit, Derek Jeter's Yankee-record safety and Mariano Rivera's 38 saves in 39 opportunities. Certainly these are three spectacular players, two sure-fire Hall of Famers and one probable one.

On the other hand, these records are something of a sideshow. After all, accumulating tons of hits often requires an inability to take a free pass. That's certainly a black mark against Ichiro. He would be a much more productive leadoff hitter if he walked 75 times a year rather than collect another 25 singles while producing 50 outs.

It's a bit more complicated with Derek Jeter, who does work the count and earn his share of bases on balls. His almost inevitable drive to 3,000 hits is based mostly on the intersection of consistent excellence with durability. This year, Jeter has reached a new level of performance just as age should be eating away at his skills.

Nonetheless, how important can it be to accumulate a large number of hits when you've passed Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth and are hot on the heels of Lou Gehrig? Clearly, Jeter's abundance of hits is less impressive than the Babe's, the Clipper's or the Mick's. That's not to say that there are any bad players where Jeter is going -- to 3,000 Land -- but hits themselves only tell part of the story.

Then there is the circus act that is the save. It happens that 38/39 accurately reflects the pitching performance of the greatest closer of all time, but in a year in which 2008's 38/39 guy is leaking like a dented sieve, we can't be faulted for being dubious about that stat. It's too bad, because Rivera is having another amazing season and even drawing some Cy Young consideration. (It's a nice sentiment, but at this point, Zack Greinke is so Cy the next candidate is third.)

Many baseball records are interesting from an academic standpoint but have limited meaning. These three (really two) fall into that category. Plus, they'll fill out the plaques in Cooperstown.
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