Hot Stove League 1933-34 Part 1

Tuesday night's All-Star game featured zero home runs and a brisk pace by modern standards, ending in two and a half hours. The winning tally in a 4-3 contest was manufactured by a hustling triple and an opposite field sacrifice fly. Here is the round tripper-free scoring summary:

Top 1st: American

- M. Teixeira reached on fielder's choice, D. Jeter scored, J. Mauer to second on first baseman A. Pujols' fielding error

- J. Hamilton grounded into fielder's choice, J. Mauer scored, M. Teixeira to third, J. Bay out at second

Bot 2nd: National

- Y. Molina singled to center, D. Wright scored, S. Victorino to third, S. Victorino scored, Y. Molina to second on center fielder J. Hamilton's throwing error

- P. Fielder ground rule double to left, Y. Molina scored

Top 5th: American

- J. Mauer doubled to left, D. Jeter scored

Top 8th: American

- A. Jones hit sacrifice fly to deep right, C. Granderson scored

With the top active home run clouters mostly absent from the all-star showcase, perhaps a new era of baseball is emerging, harkening back, if not to the Dead Ball era, at least to the relatively less lively ball of the National League 1920-1933.

Baseball history has the neat dividing line between the pre-1920 Dead Ball era and the Live Ball era which has prevailed ever since. Few are aware, however, that the ball of the National League from 1920 to 1933 was by no means a dead ball, but was merely a "livelier" ball.

The Great Depression perhaps influenced the National League in 1934 to adopt a new onion "stabilized" to the vivacious sphere used in the American League. The reasoning was reminiscent of that used to market sports to non-fans in modern sports. Scoring, scoring, scoring and more scoring was thought to bring in ladies and children. De-emphasized would be the subtleties that true fans loved: the stolen base, the hit and run, the double stretched into a triple. Why bother trying to squeeze out extra bases risking an out when the mighty swoop of a home run will score a runner from first as well as from third?

John E. Wray of the St. Louis Post Dispatch used the terminology of the time to deride the new ball's effect on the game:

"The new deal baseball would act like the New Deal dollar is supposed to---it would stimulate business...It is the prevailing belief that the public worships at the shrine of the Big Wallop...As regards the Knot Hole Gang [kids in St. Louis who watched the game through knot holes in the wall around Sportsman's Park] and the free ladies' day patronage, this is true. With many of these the climax of the game is...a knock over the wall. Whether the lively ball or the batter's prowess accomplishes this doesn't concern them. But the old "die hard" boys who like to see a run EARNED will never be reconciled to seeing a tally gained by intelligence and planning offset by a rubber-cored wallop over the roofs."

Damon Runyon wrote this in the New York American after two games in the 1934 season: "At the rate of 13 or so a day, there may be 2,000 homers hit by the end of the season, making the game more and more a matter of slug and run home."

"The introduction of the lively ball to the National League has meant a decided new deal for batters. A check of 45 regular players shows they made at total net gain of 1,227 points in their batting averages over their 1933 rate at a corresponding date. That's not recovery, it's pure inflation." wrote Caswell Adams in the New York Herald Tribune on June 20, 1934. By July 24, Sid Keener declared in the St. Louis Star Times, "Mr. Lively Baseball is all the pitchers complain about. The National League has increased its batting average from .266 in 1933 to .282 in 1934."

Like the New Deal, the new lively ball did not revive the fortunes of baseball or the general economy. "There's red ink on many baseball ledgers where red ink never went before. More money's in circulation than in the past two years. Why aren't baseball clubs getting their share of it?" opined Chester L. Smith of the Pittsburgh Press.

Whether it was due to juiced players, a juiced ball or deflated pitching, the late era from the mid-nineties to mid-aughts has been just what Damon Runyon described as a matter of "slug and run home". As a lover of the older game of speed and strategy, I was turned off by this era of home run "inflation". This was also an era of Fed credit-induced bubbles, first in tech stocks then in real estate. As increased frugality in our personal economies becomes more prevalent in this era of popped bubbles, hopefully the new crop of All-Stars will signal a new modesty in power hitting. We all scrap for a living and sacrifice some luxuries; hopefully ball players will scrap for extra bases and make more sacrifice flies for winning runs as in last night's game.