Post-Gazette: Collier: Summer of ‘68 seems like it was a million dollars ago

I think it’s so groovy now
That people are finally getting together (starts reading Fred “Ahmed” Evans’..."Cleveland: Now...And How!")

When it was all over, baseball lowered the pitching mound by 33 percent, from 15 inches to 10. By 1987, when the National League won the All-Star Game, 2-0, in 13 innings, some were saying it should be lowered again, but by 2007, pitchers often needed steroids, psycho-analysis, sunflower seeds, an emery board, and a novena just to make it through five innings.

The New York Times pointed out recently that total ERA, 2.98 in 1968, is now 4.17, but beyond all of the accepted precursors of atrocious pitching (including all the financial, political, medical, and insurance-driven reasons), the basic approach to pitching has gradually changed from attack to duck-and-cover.

This column has never been a fan of Roger Clemens for numerous and oft-stated reasons, but seeing him work was a pleasure compared to watching the great majority of people poisoning mounds this summer. In his prime and beyond, Clemens threw hard fastballs to various parts of the strikezone until the opposition demonstrated that something else might be necessary. He eventually developed a splitter that he mixed in as needed, but he certainly wasn’t fooling around out there.