DHL Dan CXIX - No Shifts In Baseball?

Without any major news on the pro baseball front, Shank takes a recent Fred Lynn tweet and made a column out of it:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for baseball …

▪ There’s considerable push to ban defensive shifts in baseball because, well, hitters are too stubborn to make adjustments. An excellent analysis in The Athletic found many baseball people who want to legislate where a manager can position his defenders.

I say no. There have been nine defensive players on the diamond for more than 150 years. Put ‘em anywhere you want. It’s up to the hitters to figure it out. In the words of Wee Willie Keeler, “Hit ‘em where they ain’t.”

Add Fred Lynn to the chorus of those who think today’s hitters need to stop crying and make some adjustments.

“I believe they shifted on Ted Williams and didn’t he hit .406?” Lynn tweeted this past week.

Lynn’s remark was a response to Joey Gallo’s sob story in The Athletic.

DHL Dan CXXXI - Want Some Politics With Your Baseball?

The state house in Georgia passed a bill this week designed to prevent Democrats from stealing future elections in that state. Major League Baseball has responded by pulling this year's All-Star game from the host city of Atlanta, and Shank's on board with it:

Baseball surprisingly acted quickly in pulling All-Star Game out of Atlanta, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while filling out an expense account for the first time in 13 months . . .

Major League Baseball’s decision to pull this summer’s All-Star Game out of Atlanta — a swift reaction to Georgia’s new voting law that many view as voter suppression targeting minorities — was stunning. MLB traditionally moves slower than other professional sports leagues regarding issues of politics and controversy. Not this time. After lobbying by civil rights groups and the MLB Players Association, commissioner Rob Manfred acted quickly.

It’s risky business for a commissioner who rarely takes risks. The decision is bound to offend a portion of baseball’s dwindling fan base — a group older, whiter, and likely more conservative than the fan bases of the NFL and NBA. Corporate pressures will be another matter altogether. Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola voiced displeasure to Georgia’s legislation, but not until after the law was changed.

I'll bet it's a fair bit bigger than a mere 'portion'; at some point everybody gets sick of politics in sports. Any of these commissioners that think viewership (say, in the NBA and especially in MLB) will magically rebound any time soon is misreading their fan base, and now they just threw some more gas on the fire.

Political backlash was immediate. Accusing Manfred of succumbing to “cancel culture and woke political activists,’’ Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, stated, “Major League Baseball caved to fear, political opportunism, and liberal lies.’’ The Braves issued a statement (embossed with their tomahawk logo) in which they said they were “deeply disappointed’’ the All-Star Game was being pulled from Atlanta. Saturday’s Wall Street Journal featured an editorial headlined “The Biden Baseball League,’' stating that MLB “has smeared Georgia’s elected majority as racist and anti-democratic,’’ concluding, “Welcome to the Democratic Baseball League.’’

So, here we go. Manfred and MLB have jumped feetfirst into America’s raging political divide. It’s going to be tough sledding from here on in. There’s a voting law bill on deck in Texas. You know Florida can’t be far behind.

Welcome to the political arena, MLB! Hope you get it, good and hard.

From there, it's the usual grab bag of semi-useless tidbit sized bullshit.

Stating The Obvious

Here's Shank on Wednesday's Baseball Hall of Fame voting:

No one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame when voting results were announced Wednesday. Steroid backlash barred the likes of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — for now — from induction into the shrine in Cooperstown, N.Y. Voting is conducted by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Thank you, Mr. Spock!

Out of It

The Red Sox, who as of this writing are 2.5 games out of the playoffs with 76 games remaining, are a trainwreck, says The CHB.

Hmmm ... how many games did the Rays and Cardinals make up in the last 31 games of the 2011 season, Mr. Short-Term Memory Guy?*

Irony then follows. The CHB says the team is "a parody of itself" and ownership has "lost all sense of accountability." Actually, this reads like he's talking about himself.

*Answer: 9 and 10.5 games, respectively.