baseball inter-league play

[Eric]

I still like the idea of it. I mean, when is the last time a team like the Tigers played the Expos/Nationals? Never. So there are still more possibilities that interleague play hasn't touched on yet.

Speaking of this, my Tigers are taking on Spence's Reds, and just to let you know, you won the battle 9-4 but you aren't going to win the war

[Spence]

If it were up to me there would still be four divisions in baseball. Baseball has expanded to the point that ithe talent is very watered down. The great players of this era look really, really great.

If Mays or Aaron played in this era they would own all of the hitting records. The pitching of today in terrible. I remember a time when a 4.00 era was considered bad and a 5.00 would get you released. Now people are getting millions of dollars for having those kinds of numbers is crazy. Todays picthing is terrible.

[Eric]

While the pitching is watered down, remember the hitting is too. So if a pitcher that has an ERA in the high 4s would probably have an ERA of about 6 if they played back in the 60s.

[Eric]

Hahahaha, speaking of interleague play, did anybody see that brawl? That's awesome. I can't stand A.J. Pierzynski.

For those of you who didn't see it, A.J. got in the way of the throw to home, slammed Michael Barrett, then slapped the plate with his hand. Then Barrett grabs on to him, exchanges a few words, and then punches his face, and then the benches clear. You have to love baseball!

[Spence]

While the pitching is watered down, remember the hitting is too. So if a pitcher that has an ERA in the high 4s would probably have an ERA of about 6 if they played back in the 60s.

Average hitters will do better against a bad pitcher then a bad hitter will do against a average pitcher. You can be taught to hit if you have good eye hand co-ordination, but you can't really be taught to be a good pitcher. More talent has to be built in. They can be taught to throw different pitches and better pitches, but they can't pitch in the show without velocity. You can't teach velocity.

The key to making the baseball better is to dump eight to ten teams. That gives pitching an advantage. Era's go down, only the really good hitters survive.

[Eric]

We must keep in mind, also, that the population of the U.S. has almost doubled since the mid-century. I took the population in 1960 and for 2006:

1960 180,671,158
2006 295,734,134

Plus the wave of oriental and latino baseball players has made a huge impact on the landscape of talent. So I don't know if it is watered down as much as people think.

[Spence]

The population may have went up, but the pitching talent hasn't. The Oriental players coming in have improved the stock some, but we have pulled the best latino players for years.