Baseball’s Balls are about to be as Dead as their Sport
NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball has slightly deadened its baseballs amid a years-long surge in home runs, a source confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday.
MLB anticipates the changes will be subtle, and a memo to teams last week cites an independent lab that found the new balls will fly 1 to 2 feet shorter on balls hit over 375 feet.
The makeup of official Rawlings baseballs used in MLB games has come under scrutiny in recent years. A record 6,776 homers were hit during the 2019 regular season, and the rate of home runs fell only slightly during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season -- from 6.6% of plate appearances resulting in homers in 2019 to 6.5% last year.
Baseball has become a mockery of itself. No shit the balls need to change. The game needs to change. You could toss dead cats at tennis rackets and I would watch over 5 hours of 1,000 strike outs and 500 home runs. It’s become a bunch of self involved dick heads with “Launch Angles” and “Arm Slots" playing Who’s the Bigger Pud on the mountain.
So if deadened balls make these guys actually swing for a single slightly out of the zone with 2 strikes instead of resting the bat on their shoulder and dragging their fat ass back to the bench, then golf clap.
And let us not forget who has infiltrated the MLB offices. The walking baseball God Theo Epstein and the coolest mofo to ever lace em up, Ken Griffy Jr. If you don’t think this “significant” move is tied to these two you are mistaken. The only hope baseball has lies in the fast twitch muscles of Griffey JR. and Theo’s Suave Nerd mystique.
