Top 7: Hardest Things to do in Modern Day Baseball

Do you ever have someone on your favorite baseball team do something seemingly amazing and you wonder what the record for said amazing accomplishment is?  And then you’re completely blown away by the record? 

Baseball changes a lot as it switches eras.  If you had told 1990 me that someone would hit 73 home runs, I would have asked to skip the rest of my childhood so I could see.  1990 me would have then shot himself in the throat once he found out that it was Barry Bonds breaking Mark McGwire’s record.  But the fact that it can chance so quickly just shows how eras come and go and you barely notice. 

It’s hard to imagine anyone stealing 100 bases right now, but it wasn’t even that long ago that people were doing it regularly.  Here are the hardest things to do in modern-day baseball that have actually been done before.  They have to be statistics, so things like “don’t wear a helmet and get hit in the head with a pitch and be killed” can’t make the list.

7. Throw at someone
At the slightest inclination that there may be some retaliation, today’s umpires will do the old “warn both benches” deal that leads to suspensions and mass fines if anyone is hit at all.  I blame Shawn Estes.  After the Mike Piazza/Roger Clemens feud in the early 2000s, the national media started an enormous campaign the next summer over whether the Mets would hit Clemens on purpose when he came to Shea.  Estes tried to throw at him and miss.  Both benches were warned, no one was hit, and umps have been quick to pull the trigger on warnings since.

6. Balk
The most exciting play in baseball isn’t called as much anymore, especially if Angel Hernandez is not on the umpiring crew.  Back in 1988, the rules committee changed the wording on the balk rule, meaning that baseball broke the all-time balk record in May.  The ’88 season was called “The Year of the Balk.”  I’m sure Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser are happy that’s how the season is remembered.  You especially realize how tough it is to balk when you watch a guy like Rockies reliever Rafael Betancourt, who balks every freaking pitch.###MORE###

5. Not strike out
Much like Usian Bolt, major league hitters keep venturing further into simply unbelievable strikeout territory.  Just a few years ago, guys were sitting out the season (like Jose Hernandez) so they wouldn’t break the all-time record of 189 strikeouts.  Now, Mark Reynolds seems almost proud to K 223 times.  Stan Musial never struck out more than 46 times in an entire season.  Reynolds did that in May of this year.  Joe Dimaggio struck out the most times in his rookie season, 39 times.  Reynolds’s monthly splits in strikeouts look like Dimaggio’s seasons.

4. Hit a bunch of triples
Of the 76 21+ triple seasons in major league history, only three have happened after 1945.  One of them was Curtis Granderson back in 2007.  His key?  A gigantic Comerica Park to play in, which is how so many of these guys hit so many triples back in the day—it’s what 500-foot center fields would do for you.

3. Steal 100 bases
Every time Vince Coleman got on base, the old split-screen came up!  I miss the old split screen.  That was before technology was even that great.  In today’s telecasts, they would probably have four split screens: his feet, a shot of the pitcher, a shot of the pitcher with the runner behind him, and then your normal “behind the plate” shot.  You’d get three shots of him taking off, so much that the announcer saying “there he goes” would be four times redundant.  This wouldn’t be true of TBS the way their coverage has gone—it’s like a flashback to the old-style of covering baseball…badly.  If a guy stole 100 now, he’d be a top three fantasy player.  You would almost guarantee yourself a category win.

2. Throw 20+ complete games
The National League leader in complete games this season was 4, by Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum.  Roy Halladay is known as the complete game “master” in today’s game, and he had 9 this year and last (he’s led the league in CGs five times).  Notorious media whore Curt Schilling actually got up to 15 back in 1998, which seems amazing, but that pales in comparison to what guys used to do.  Bob Gibson threw 28 complete games twice.  Just the other day, the MLB network showed his 17 strikeout World Series game.  He struck out six in the final three innings.  The guys could barely even foul the ball off of him.  It was insane.  Guys used to throw 20 or 30 complete games a season every single year.  The all-time record doesn’t even seem possible: 75!  75 complete games!  If a middle reliever makes 75 appearances in a season, he’s considered of them “workhorses.”

1. Win 30 games
This one was covered a bit last week, but the average starting pitcher gets about 35 starts a season.  If his offense sucks, he could theoretically throw 23 innings of shutout ball and not factor in the decision.  If his bullpen sucks, they could blow three or four saves for him a season (or more).  With those factors and others, it’s hard enough to simply get 30 DECISIONS in a season, let alone 30 wins.  Bob Welch won 27 in 1990; no one else has gotten more than 24 since then.  Unless you have someone pitching as well as Greg Maddux in the mid 90s, with the saves streak Eric Gagne closing, and with a late 90s Yankees offense, it’s hard to imagine anyone getting 30 again.

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