Baseball: Perfection Is the Problem

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Jim Pattison, 39, used to be a baseball fan—until last week, when he traveled all the way from Vancouver to Houston to attend the 39th annual All-Star game "because I wanted to see the best hitters in baseball." Pattison in stead saw "the biggest bore of my life": a game in which both teams, between them, collected only eight hits and struck out 20 times. The only score came in the first inning, when San Francisco's Willie Mays singled, went to second on a muffed pick-off attempt, to third on a wild pitch, and home on a double play. That unearned run gave the National League the game and Mays the Most Valuable Player award.

The award might better have been divvied up among the twelve pitchers. If the game signified anything, it was that baseball has become a pitcher's preserve. Going into the All-Star break, only twelve batters in both leagues were above the .300 mark, and only two of them—Pittsburgh's Matty Alou (.344) and Cincinnati's Pete Rose (.329)—were hitting over .320. Atlanta's Henry Aaron, a lifetime .316 hitter, is currently batting .248; Pittsburgh's Roberto Clemente, a four-time batting champion, is chopping at .252. Six National League and 13 American League regulars are batting under .200.

Denny & Dizzy. Pitchers' performances have been as spectacular as the hitters' have been horrific. It was only seven years ago that Warren Spahn topped all National League hurlers with an earned-run average of 3.01; this year there are 69 pitchers with lower ERAs than that. Three pitchers—Detroit's Denny McLain (record: 17-2), San Francisco's Juan Marichal (15-4) and Cleveland's Luis Tiant (14-5)—all have a shot at winning 30 games, a feat last accomplished by Dizzy Dean in 1934. Tiant, the All-Star game loser, has an incredible ERA of 1.24; the All-Star winner, Los Angeles' Don Drysdale, is only a few points off that, at 1.59.

"The umpires are giving the pitchers all the breaks," grouses Henry Aaron. Other batsmen blame their anemic averages on the hardships of coast-to-coast travel, the lengthened big-league schedule, the visual vicissitudes of night baseball, the spacious new ballparks that turn extra-base blasts into long outs, and the bushel-basket-sized gloves used by fielders today. Factors all, but the commanding factor still is a quantum improvement in pitching quality.

Surfeit of Sophistication. "It began about 1953 in the Little Leagues," says California Angels Shortstop Jim Fregosi. "They started taking all the good athletes and making them pitchers." By the time he is twelve, today's Little Leaguer can cut the corner of the plate with a curve and he has the confidence to throw one on a three-and-two count. When he reaches the majors at an average age of 20, after progressing through the Pony League, high school, American Legion baseball, college and/or the minors, he is already a polished pro. Never before have the majors enjoyed such a surfeit of sophisticated young pitchers. Even the New York Mets boast the likes of Jerry Koosman (12-4) and Tom Seaver (7-6), whose contribution to last week's All-Star game was striking out five American League batters in two innings.