Since I’ve been on a baseball rampage since the new season started, I’ve had a few baseball articles I’ve been geeking over. An interesting one is from the SF Chronicle contesting the micromanagement of high pitch counts in baseball.
New York Giants pitcher Joe McGinnity, known as “Iron Man,” didn’t start pitching in the major leagues until he was 28. Five times, he pitched both ends of a doubleheader. He worked an astounding 434 innings in the 1903 season, and over his 10-year career racked up 247 wins and 314 complete games. Get this, though: Wandering through the minors until he was 52, McGinnity collected 204 more wins.
It’s interesting how inflated payrolls and contracts changes the perception of stamina and the spirit of the game against the practicality of protecting your financial investment. Pitch count has been an issue, apparently, for major league umpires as well.
2 Comments
yo, it’s totally true. there have been so many games the jays blew when closing pitchers blew the on-fire-but-pulled-to-save-his-arm starter’s lead.
or maybe we just have shit closers. like brandon league. and b.j. ryan.
Your Jays are of the fancy statistically driven sabremetric variety as well.