Baseball and Walker

By Jeff Orvis

This time, I decided to fore go any real heavy thoughts to give some random comments on a couple of totally unrelated subjects.

The other night, Tampa and Baltimore played an extra inning baseball game. In fact, it lasted parts of two days, 18 innings and nearly seven hours. Why anyone would want to sit through an American League game for that long, either in person or watching TV, is a bit of a mystery. I would bet that most of the players' parents, wives and girlfriends were in bed before it was over.

Part of the problem, aside from the fact that apparently neither team brought their best bats on this night, was that the two managers must have thought that whenever their pitcher sneezed, they needed to come out of the game. The two teams used a record 21 pitchers! When you consider that each pitching change probably took between three and five minutes and there were 36 interruptions between half-innings, you begin to understand why this took so long.

We live in a world of specialization. There was a time when a pitching staff might have five or six starting pitchers and two or three relievers. Now we have left-handed starters, right-handed starters, right or left handers who are closers and normally don't pitch more than one inning a day, middle relievers who might be good for two or three innings and set-up men who pitch the seventh or eighth inning ahead of the closers.

This is also supposed to be the age when major league baseball players are in better shape than in the “old days.” Fifty years ago, a lot of the players sneaked a hot dog or two between innings or perhaps a trip down the tunnel toward the locker room for a cigarette. Some of the best players of the 1960s spent their off-hours in the bar. If you were an opposing hitter in that era, would you want to face Whitey Ford if he had a hangover?

And yet, some of the statistics for the old-timers are almost beyond belief for younger fans of today. For example, the 1963 Chicago Cubs (it's my blog so I can pick my favorite team for comparison) had one 22-game winner, four pitchers with at least 10 victories, three who pitched over 200 innings, two others with at least 130 innings pitched and two who appeared in at least 50 games.

At last check, with less than a week left in the regular season, we have had one 20-game winner this season. In the 1963 season, there were 10 pitchers in the big leagues with 20 or more wins. And just so I'm not using only former Cub pitchers in my comparison, consider Bob Gibson, who pitched for the Cardinals for 17 years, He won at least 20 games five times and averaged 15 complete games per season. He finished with a career earned run average of 2.91, including one memorable season when he finished with an earned run average of 1.12 with 28 complete games and a record of 22-9 at age 33.

The discussion can go on for hours between fans who think today's players are better than they were 40 or more years ago. I just wonder how good some of my heroes from the past could have been if they took better care of themselves like so many of today's players do and if they were paid enough so that they didn't have to worry about jobs in the off-season.

Now on a totally different topic, I've had some times in these recent months to become acquainted with some daytime TV. One of my favorite shows is Walker Texas Ranger. Every episode has at least one or two scenes where Walker and his aides kick the stuffing out of the bad guys. There's plenty of added sounds to indicate just how hard the bad guy is being hit. Yet for some reason, even if he is kicked in the head, he stands there for one or two more big blows. I don't know about you, but if somebody wearing cowboy boots kicked me full-on in the face, the jaw would be broken and teeth would be scattered on the floor.

Aside from the assumed durability of the bad guys, you never see Walker and his chief deputy stay around to fill out paperwork. In fact, mere moments after they drop a dozen of the thugs and the marked squad cars arrive, they're off to their next adventure.

Just imagine what some of the actor-stunt men would put on their job resumes. They could probably say they were Walker's punching bag in six different episodes. Quite a fete!

Law enforcement is generally far less exciting than portrayed on TV. Reports have to be filed, witnesses have to be interviewed, there are appearances in court. Most times when I'm watching Walker, I'm trying to count the number of bad guys he's felled and just how few minutes he spends without wearing his beloved hat!