Thank you! I've played in a vintage baseball league for the past decade - it's my favorite hobby I've ever had - and this is the piece I've wanted to give to folks to explain why we do this weird thing.
Oh my god I fucking hate Substack - I type a comment out and if my thumb slips one millimeter, the entire thing disappears off the right, never to be retrieved. Why is this app so much worse than every other iPhone app?
I’ll summarize my previous (brilliant) comment: 19th century baseball didn’t just have some rules that would look unfamiliar, the entire spirit of the game was different. Almost like leisure time was so new to the country, that they didn’t want to sully it with competitive fires…
I’m sure there are a thousand books on the subject - let me recommend the Great Courses “Play Ball!” as a very well-done overview of the early decades of the great game.
Have fun at the game, Halina, and I hope it warms up! Today's game was the coldest in Dodger franchise history (timely, given the subject of the post) and almost got rescheduled. Saturday's Dodger starting pitcher, Emmett Sheehan, went out in his shorts and built a snowman.
I've gotten into umpiring high school baseball the last few years. It's an older, less optimized form of the game, a pro-social activity, and a revenue positive hobby. I recommend to anyone who loves the game and has a modicum of fitness and quick thinking.
Kind of a dumb article, and a dumb past time. I, too, agree that modern baseball can be very boring to watch. But it's not because of refined rules. It's because pitchers are too good and there aren't enough fair balls hit. Go to a local recreational slow pitch league to see lots of action, not just on every play, but often on every pitch.
I suspect the optimal set of rules for pros in most games is just really different from the optimal rules for normies, and probably we often end up with more optimized-for-pros rules than we should because that's what people see and where people are thinking hardest about the rules. OTOH, playing baseball without a glove sounds kinda nuts to me.
This is me being old: I like to eat in restaurants (even fast food) but the bloody food app orders jam everything up and hey, the restaurant is basically empty of anyone else. I strongly suspect that dining rooms are gonna shrink or close altogether. Maybe I actually have to waste my time preparing meals.
8 bit--Bases loaded was my favorite growing up but the internet seems to think baseball stars was the best of the NES/Master System era. I've found sports games from the 8 bit era just hard to go back to without deep nostalgia.
16 bit-Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball I've actually played the hell out of this era of games because SNES and genesis emulators and free roms were available very early on like a basic pentium chip pc. There were certainly a good few on the Genesis too but this one was really great.
I love the bounce rule so much. I would also love it if in addition to old time sports we had futuristic experimental rules. If I ever become a billionaire I'm going to start a minor league where you get four strikes instead of three but a swinging strike counts as one and a looking strike counts for two. That way there's more incentive to swing and put balls in play and less walks and strikeouts. I'd also like to see 4 out innings (probably with 7 inning games) just because the one in a million time someone turns a quadruple play it would be so cool.
I'd like to see baseball tried with cricket-style innings.
That is:
* every inning starts with the leadoff hitter.
* It matters which player is out, because they are out of the inning
* If you score, you can bat again when your spot comes up in the order; if you're out, you can't and it goes to the next available player
* Inning ends once there are six outs, because then the defense could walk the bases full and there'd be no-one left to bat.
There would be a lot more than twice as many runs per inning as three out baseball (because there would be a much lower percentage left on base), so you probably only need three innings for a game to be about the same length as nine three-out innings. Have the seventh-inning stretch at the end of the second inning.
Thank you! I've played in a vintage baseball league for the past decade - it's my favorite hobby I've ever had - and this is the piece I've wanted to give to folks to explain why we do this weird thing.
Oh my god I fucking hate Substack - I type a comment out and if my thumb slips one millimeter, the entire thing disappears off the right, never to be retrieved. Why is this app so much worse than every other iPhone app?
I’ll summarize my previous (brilliant) comment: 19th century baseball didn’t just have some rules that would look unfamiliar, the entire spirit of the game was different. Almost like leisure time was so new to the country, that they didn’t want to sully it with competitive fires…
I’m sure there are a thousand books on the subject - let me recommend the Great Courses “Play Ball!” as a very well-done overview of the early decades of the great game.
What a wonderful piece of writing, he says during almost one week in Dublin…
As an Englishman I had no interest in baseball whatsoever, but this was an enthralling article. Thank you. And North Woods is a terrific book.
Maybe the best thing about these games is that NOTHING is out of play. A home run really requires running
As a long time Ohio Village Muffins fan, I approve this message.
Have fun at the game, Halina, and I hope it warms up! Today's game was the coldest in Dodger franchise history (timely, given the subject of the post) and almost got rescheduled. Saturday's Dodger starting pitcher, Emmett Sheehan, went out in his shorts and built a snowman.
I've gotten into umpiring high school baseball the last few years. It's an older, less optimized form of the game, a pro-social activity, and a revenue positive hobby. I recommend to anyone who loves the game and has a modicum of fitness and quick thinking.
The Arizona Diamondbacks put guards around Splash's pond in an anachronistic jumble of Dodger history.
Gonna check if Scarecrow is an available free agent in my fantasy league
Kind of a dumb article, and a dumb past time. I, too, agree that modern baseball can be very boring to watch. But it's not because of refined rules. It's because pitchers are too good and there aren't enough fair balls hit. Go to a local recreational slow pitch league to see lots of action, not just on every play, but often on every pitch.
I suspect the optimal set of rules for pros in most games is just really different from the optimal rules for normies, and probably we often end up with more optimized-for-pros rules than we should because that's what people see and where people are thinking hardest about the rules. OTOH, playing baseball without a glove sounds kinda nuts to me.
This is me being old: I like to eat in restaurants (even fast food) but the bloody food app orders jam everything up and hey, the restaurant is basically empty of anyone else. I strongly suspect that dining rooms are gonna shrink or close altogether. Maybe I actually have to waste my time preparing meals.
Love this piece, Halina. Don't let the sports haters get to you!
Barely on topic: what was the best baseball video game prior to the 64-bit era?
8 bit--Bases loaded was my favorite growing up but the internet seems to think baseball stars was the best of the NES/Master System era. I've found sports games from the 8 bit era just hard to go back to without deep nostalgia.
16 bit-Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball I've actually played the hell out of this era of games because SNES and genesis emulators and free roms were available very early on like a basic pentium chip pc. There were certainly a good few on the Genesis too but this one was really great.
There is absolutely no way I will claim this was the best one, but damn it, it was the one that entertained me the most: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Stadium_Series%E2%80%94Base_Wars
Looks excellent; love good NES titles even if the Master System is objectively better.
This one: https://www.amazon.com/Mattel-43386-Classic-Baseball-Game/dp/B00005YWNI
"The Sandlot" remains an iconic movie.
I love the bounce rule so much. I would also love it if in addition to old time sports we had futuristic experimental rules. If I ever become a billionaire I'm going to start a minor league where you get four strikes instead of three but a swinging strike counts as one and a looking strike counts for two. That way there's more incentive to swing and put balls in play and less walks and strikeouts. I'd also like to see 4 out innings (probably with 7 inning games) just because the one in a million time someone turns a quadruple play it would be so cool.
I'd like to see baseball tried with cricket-style innings.
That is:
* every inning starts with the leadoff hitter.
* It matters which player is out, because they are out of the inning
* If you score, you can bat again when your spot comes up in the order; if you're out, you can't and it goes to the next available player
* Inning ends once there are six outs, because then the defense could walk the bases full and there'd be no-one left to bat.
There would be a lot more than twice as many runs per inning as three out baseball (because there would be a much lower percentage left on base), so you probably only need three innings for a game to be about the same length as nine three-out innings. Have the seventh-inning stretch at the end of the second inning.