The White Sox in this era were also illegally storing baseballs in the freezer, which caused run scoring levels in games played in Comiskey to be at historic lows.

Never heard that before ... veddy interesting.

we did this in the atlantic league a couple of times...balls shipped from the factory in boxes of 10 doze, and we used to store them in a room that had no ventilation or a/c...so they would get hot, and (whether this is accurate or just me matching it to a story in my head) would definitely feel lighter than a similar box stored at room temp...normally we'd go through baseballs at a predictable rate, and move a box or two into the umpire's room a while before use, so the temperature would stabilize...sometimes though, we'd run through them more quickly than normal, and the best solution we came up with was to throw them in a walk in freezer for a while to try and quick-cool them...again, no scientific evidence that either made a huge difference...but it did seem to deaden the ball....I'll have to try that in my slow-pitch league - as a pitcher, I'll take whatever advantage I can get.

Never heard that before ... veddy interesting.

Veeck was not shy to try anything to gain an edge and the groundskeepers at Comiskey would do anything to give their boys and edge. I forget their names but I believe they were brothers.

Edit: It was the Bossard family that were the groundskeepers.

We’re not seeing DOMINANCE of pitchers the last three years; the major league ERA last year was barely under 4.00. In 1988 it was 3.71, in 1978 3.67, in 1968 2.98, in 1958 3.86. We’re merely drifting back TOWARD historically normal figures. We’re not even quite there yet. The banning of PEDs has a lot to do with it, yes.

Says the man who in his New Historical Baseball Abstract in 2001 wrote an essay listing all the factors responsible for the increase in offense in the 90s.

And not once did he mention steroids.

Says the man who in his New Historical Baseball Abstract in 2001 wrote an essay listing all the factors responsible for the increase in offense in the 90s.

And not once did he mention steroids.

I don't get the point. Are you trying to say Bill James should be like an old time sports writer and insist that he knew everything all along and never change a viewpoint?

I don't get the point.

That there probably should be a mea culpa somewhere in the many posts of Bill James is probably the point. James was a rather ardent doubter of steroids for an extremely long time. If he is now at the point where he casually drops PED use as a reason for performance and has never walked back his previous statements it is a glaring ember of oopsie on his part.

Since run scoring only dipped slightly in the immediate years after testing started, it's pretty clear that steroids weren't a major effect, and if Bill James owes us an apology it's for the use of the words "major cause" just now.

Anybody else noticed that the high strike seems to be back in business a little more than during sillyball? It used to be you could go outside or inside a little bit, but otherwise you had to basically put it on a tee.

Never heard that before ... veddy interesting

Before you is the distinct pleasure of reading Veeck as in Wreck - good at any age, but it ought to be given to every 12 year old boy.

Which was roughly the age at which I read it the first time. (Might've been 11.) Sheer bliss.

Which was roughly the age at which I read it the first time. (Might've been 11.) Sheer bliss.

Absolutely, that and The Hustler's Handbook, which, while not quite as good (IMHO) is a great read as well. Right or wrong Bill Veeck was not shy about expressing his views on anything.

June 10 [1969]

...

Talking about his Chicago White Sox days, McNertney said that Eddie Stanky always insisted there was only one excuse for not being in the lineup - if there was a bone showing. Stanky was also responsible for storing the baseballs in a cool, damp place. McNertney: "You had to wipe the mildew off the balls before the game. First you'd take them out of the boxes, which were all rotted away anyway, wipe the mildew off and put them in new boxes. Then you gave them to the umpires and they never suspected a thing."

The idea, of course, is that cold, damp baseballs don't travel as far as warm, dry baseballs, and the White Sox were not exactly sluggers.

- Jim Bouton, Ball Four

DB

Is there split data for the current minor league season? SSS, but I wonder if there's been any change with the Colorado Springs team, which added a humidor.

That there probably should be a mea culpa somewhere in the many posts of Bill James is probably the point. James was a rather ardent doubter of steroids for an extremely long time. If he is now at the point where he casually drops PED use as a reason for performance and has never walked back his previous statements it is a glaring ember of oopsie on his part.

I'd be less interested in a mea culpa, and more interested in a discussion of how he came to his new position. I don't think a change in opnion is necessarily something to apologize for, but it does provide an opportunity to explore someone's thought processes.