Word: pitcherful
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...back in the World Series for the fourth time in the last five years. Both teams are flush with talent and, with two of the highest payrolls in baseball, money. But both have spent that money well. The Braves, feeling that you can never have too many good starting pitchers, have seemingly cornered the market with a rotation that consists of two Cy Young winners (Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine), this year's probable winner (John Smoltz) and the man who was the number one pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates for most of this year, Denny Neagle. The Yankees, meanwhile...
...dingers) was broken this year. More people hit 20, 30, or 40 homers than ever before. The Baltimore Orioles broke the Yankees' team record of 240 homers in a season. An ERA of four, once considered the threshold of mediocrity, was good enough this year to place a pitcher amongst the AL's elite hurlers...
Baseball in '96 was not all fun and games, however. Randy Johnson, the games most dominating pitcher, hardly threw at all this season because of a debilitating back injury. Hopefully, Johnson's extensive work in last year's playoffs did not do irreparable damage, and the "Big Unit" will be back to his intimidating ways...
...final move to swing the pendulum back to the pitcher would be to abolish the oft-misunderstood infield fly rule. I realize there are reasons why it's there, but if it were gone it would make the game that much more interesting, at times comically so. Think about...
Always it comes down to the fundamental confrontation of pitcher and batter, with the catcher involved as the only player who faces the field and sees the whole game; he presides as a masked god squatting. The pitcher's role is slyer than the batter's, but the batter's is more human. The pitcher plays offense and defense simultaneously. He labors to tempt and to deceive. The batter cannot know what is coming. He can go down swinging or looking and be made to look the fool. Yet he has a bat in his hands. And if all goes...