I was wondering what most people thought were some game changing events in the game of baseball. My group is doing a formal report on Baseball and I decided to do a part on this. I've come up with Jackie Robinson, the baseball strike and the '98 Home run chase. Anyone have any other ideas of what are good game changing events?

4/19/2006 2:35:56 PM

I take it you are looking at the overall game as the way it is played and single event or series of events created an impact over the years; and not a particular play in a game in-progress?

4/19/2006 2:39:20 PM

black sox

4/19/2006 2:41:27 PM

Jackie Robinson hands down has to be the ultimate game changing event.

You could also go the curse route. Ruth to the Yanks. The goat in Chicago. The 1919 Black Sox.

Ruths' legendary 600+ ft. homerun in Detroit stadium.

The planned demise of old Yankee Stadium.

the 14 consecutive division titles by the Atlanta Braves, the most in any professional sport, ever, by a lot.

And the 72 All Star game, probably the best ever. Robinson hit a monster homerun that was stopped only by a pole (probably would've been more than the record) ironically, in Detroit Tiger Stadium.

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 2:43 PM. Reason : .]

4/19/2006 2:42:12 PM

4/19/2006 2:43:03 PM

The designated hitter was adopted by Major League Baseball's American League in 1973.

Interleague play was introduced in 1997.

The MLB Wildcard playoff spot began in 1995.



[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 2:46 PM. Reason : &]

4/19/2006 2:43:41 PM

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 2:47 PM. Reason : .]

4/19/2006 2:45:47 PM

Pitchers mound was lowered to 10" in 1969 from 15".

4/19/2006 2:54:42 PM

ok dude. we get it. Can we move on with the conversation?

4/19/2006 2:54:46 PM

1919 white sox
babe ruth
jackie robinson
1994 strike
1998 nl home run race

and for a year that literally changed the game, bob gibson's 1968 season pretty much singlehandedly lowered the mound 5 inches

4/19/2006 2:54:52 PM

Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters and 5,000+ strikeouts. Probably the best pitcher ever.

4/19/2006 2:56:57 PM

^ really?

4/19/2006 3:26:01 PM

no, not really

4/19/2006 3:28:36 PM

You've gotta be kidding me if you don't consider him at the very least one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He's the K king and the no-hitter king. Those are two stats that will stand for a very long time.

4/19/2006 3:35:58 PM

cy young won 511 games

that will never EVER EVER be broken

EVER

4/19/2006 3:40:44 PM

Quote :

"He's the K king and the no-hitter king. Those are two stats that will stand for a very long time."

i love nolan, but he's not the best. his WHIP and ERA were awful, and i think he's close to the top in walks

4/19/2006 3:46:17 PM

it gets by beckman?...or something like that?

4/19/2006 3:46:25 PM

the birth of this man changed baseball forever:

4/19/2006 3:51:54 PM

You can put it on the boaaaaaaaaard, yes!

I'd say the Wild Card, DH, night games, and this man are the big ones for baseball:


[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 3:59 PM. Reason : .]

4/19/2006 3:56:05 PM

The birth of the red x? ^^

4/19/2006 4:04:18 PM

works for me and jamz0r

4/19/2006 4:04:53 PM

nolan's career era was 3.19 and whip was 1.247. i wouldn't consider either of those awful. he didn't have that great of a win-loss record, but he definitely had longevity and was a great pitcher. i don't know if he is one of the very best though.

4/19/2006 4:07:30 PM

5000+ Ks, 500300+ wins, and 7 no hitters...

HE'S NOT FUCKING GOOD.

HE'S FUCKING AWESOME.

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:14 PM. Reason : saw the post above. Read cy young winner won 500+ games.. i didn't believe it either]

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:18 PM. Reason : shit... he didn't even win a cy young either. I got pwnd. He's still one of the best though]

4/19/2006 4:11:04 PM

whoa
whoa
whoa
whoa
whoa
whoa
whoa
whoa....he doesnt have 500+ wins. he's in the low 300s somewhere

4/19/2006 4:13:17 PM

umm
Cy Young is the only one with 500+ wins
try 300+
Nolan's win/loss record sucked compared to the rest of his stats. He was barely a .500 pitcher for his career.

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:15 PM. Reason : he said CY YOUNG won 511, not the Cy Young WINNER]

4/19/2006 4:14:30 PM

^ There's a lot more to beign a pitcher than W - L... you have to have bats to back you up on that.

4/19/2006 4:15:25 PM

Yrs G IP W L Sv SO ERA
27 807 5386 324 292 3 5714 3.19

Nolans Career stats.

4/19/2006 4:18:59 PM

other things that changed the game:

-Curt Flood ushering in free agency and ending the reserve clause. (To me, this is the SINGLE most significant change in sports)

-DiMaggio 56 game hit streak. Still a record and probably the toughest existing record to break.

-George Brett going for .400

-interleague Play

4/19/2006 4:22:20 PM

^^^ I am aware of that, as is everyone else who has ever watched baseball. That said, you were the one to bring up wins.

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:23 PM. Reason : another ^]

4/19/2006 4:23:04 PM

Quote :

"it gets by beckman?...or something like that?"

Buckner...I think you're probably in the wrong thread

^^d'oh! Curt Flood and free agency - I knew I forgot something huge. I'm with you on that being the most significant change.

4/19/2006 4:27:31 PM

Nolan Ryan had 292 losses - no way in hell is he even close to one of the best pitchers ever. W-L record isn't the most important number to look at it, but neither is Ks (by the way he's walked more men than anyone else too).

When I think of dominating pitchers, Nolan barely crosses my mind. Maddux, RJohnson, Clemens, PMartinez, Gibson, Koufax, Mathewson, WJohnson and others go first.

4/19/2006 4:33:18 PM

Quote :

"-Curt Flood ushering in free agency and ending the reserve clause. (To me, this is the SINGLE most significant change in sports)"

Damn, I was working my way through this thread and couldn't believe how long it took for this to pop up. Flood and the McNally-Messersmith decision together completely changed the face of professional sports.

4/19/2006 4:36:28 PM

wild card

try and find some of the articles from then. apparently people thought it would destroy the game. woops.


edit- change in ball from the 20s? "dead ball era"
outlawing the spitball

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:42 PM. Reason : added]

4/19/2006 4:41:43 PM

I am not sure how I feel about the Flood decision and free agency in general. I guess in the purest sense I agree with it because the alternative was certainly akin to indentured servitude, however, it basically destroyed the concept of a "team" to me. players were free to move around to the highest bidder, whereas before you could pull for a team and know the players and really get into it. Nowadays, players move around so much, there seems to be no loyalty.

4/19/2006 4:42:00 PM

I am so tired of the wins and losses being brought into a pitcher discussion as a stat that has anything to do with how good they are/were. This is obviously an improbable example, but if you pitched 20 complete games allowing 1 run each game, and your team scored 0, then you get an ERA of 1.00 and a record of 0-20.

Lets look at Roger Clemens last year (13-8, 1.876 ERA) Voters argued he didnt have 20 wins so he shouldnt get the Cy Young, but the fact is he was among most (if not the most) dominant pitcher in all of baseball last year. Wins and losses is extremely dependent on how many runs your team scores, which has almost NOTHING to do with how well you pitch. I know this is basic obvious stuff, but people always bring this crap up as if they don't understand it.

Also, I don't really agree when people argue about someone not having won an MVP or Cy Young award. All that shows is that you were the best hitter/player during ONE year. You can't judge anything based on one year, or lack thereof. Two situations:

1) Your career lasts 10 years during which there is only 1 other pitcher better than you who wins the Cy Young every single year (maybe he turns out to be the best pitcher ever in the history of the game?) and you come in second. People are now going to say you aren't one of the best because you never won a Cy Young?

2) You win the Cy Young/MVP one year...holy shit best player ever, Steve Bedrosian first ballot hall of famer!

4/19/2006 4:42:19 PM

don't forget the introduction of the Designated Hitter and the introduction of Astro Turf. both of those events had a major impact on the game.

(sorry, didnt notice that the DH had been mentioned earlier. ooops)

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:44 PM. Reason : DH]

4/19/2006 4:43:43 PM

Quote :

"edit- change in ball from the 20s? "dead ball era""

The ball didn't actually change - the phrase dead ball era refers to the period before Babe Ruth came along, when most of the games were very low scoring affairs, with few home runs.

The only thing that can be said about an actual difference in the ball was that they would generally go entire games using one or maybe two balls - so over the course of the game it would get slightly softer as it got hit more and more. But then again they didn't start using 60+ balls/game until much much later, and it didn't seem to have that much of an effect on Ruth/Gehrig/Foxx/etc.

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:52 PM. Reason : .]

4/19/2006 4:48:56 PM

The 1919 fix perhaps.

4/19/2006 4:48:57 PM

has anyone mentioned pete rose betting on baseball?

4/19/2006 4:48:59 PM

^^read the thread

4/19/2006 4:49:21 PM

How about the Giants/Dodgers/Yankees all being in New York City at the same time

The Dodgers moved out west to Los Angeles for the 1958 season, meanwhile convincing their rivals, the Giants, to move along with them, but to San Francisco - basically taking Big League Baseball out to the western United States for the first time

Gave the Yankees complete control over NYC til the Mets started play in 1962

4/19/2006 4:50:02 PM

^^ Yea, I was scanning for 1919, not black sox.

4/19/2006 4:54:29 PM

I still say Jackie Robinson has to be #1. And I'm white.

4/19/2006 4:55:21 PM

no harm done

4/19/2006 4:55:39 PM

^^^ 4th post down (mine):

Quote :

"The 1919 Black Sox"

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 4:56 PM. Reason : nother ^]

4/19/2006 4:55:52 PM

<- blind

4/19/2006 4:56:43 PM

No harm done.

I posted that nolan ryan had 500+ wins

4/19/2006 4:58:45 PM

Jackie Robinson was huge, no doubt. But I think that was something that was inevitable. The Negro Leagues were easily displaying superior talent at that point in time. From what I have read there were several GM's that were wanting to bring in black players, however Branch Rickey just beat them to it (was the first to have the guts!). The integration of the game was very signifacant in society as a whole. It went so far beyond baseball (and sports in general).

But looking strickly at the game of baseball, bringing in the black players wasn't AS significant as the move to free agency. Bringing in the minority players just was an infusion of a new pool of amazing athletes.

4/19/2006 5:01:46 PM

Right, to the game of baseball, free agency probably was the one thing that changed it most. Jackie Robinson and the integration of blacks was more of a societal thing. Nonetheless, it was monumental. The American pasttime had accepted a black person... and a damn fine player at that.

4/19/2006 5:03:32 PM

Ctrl + F people.

i definitely agree that the top 3 should be (in no particular order):

-Jackie Robinson
-the emergence of Babe Ruth
-tie between the Black Sox/Pete Rose/Free Agency (these three are all very important, just depends on which one you think had the bigger effect)

free agency had a great impact on all of professional sports, but you could easily argue that the other two had a bigger impact on how people perceived baseball and the players.

4/19/2006 5:04:09 PM