September Round Up!
Thoughts on records and everything from Undrafted this month...
Two Yankee franchise records were tied on Wednesday night. The first, obviously, was Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in a single season, which was tied by Aaron Judge. The second was Ron Guidry’s mark for strikeouts in a single season, which Gerrit Cole tied when he recorded his 248th strikeout just a few minutes before Judge’s blast.
It’s interesting to compare these records because, while Judge is having a truly historic offensive season, Cole’s year has actually been pretty disappointing. He got off to a strong start, but he’s been very erratic in the second half. His ERA this month is 4.80, and he’s surrendered more home runs this season than anyone else in the American League. And yet he will, in all likelihood, pass Guidry’s record, which was set in 1978, when Guidry had one of the best seasons of any pitcher in baseball history.
The issue, of course, is that strikeouts are just way more common now than they were in 1978. That year, there were 20,058 strikeouts across all of baseball. This year, there will be more than twice that many. The only reason more strikeout records haven’t been broken is that pitchers throw fewer innings than they used to — Cole reached 248 strikeouts in 79 fewer innings than it took Guidry in ‘78. Every baseball fan is aware of this; whether you know the exact numbers or not, it’s obvious that strikeouts have been up for years. Which is why nobody is really that impressed by Cole’s new franchise record.
At the same time, nobody is insisting that Cole’s record is illegitimate, or that Guidry will always be the “real” Yankee strikeout king. Structural explanations — that is, explanations that apply to everyone — just don’t lend themselves to these kinds of moral judgments. In fact, structural explanations often work AGAINST such moral judgments, which is why people really hate them. If you attribute an increase in crime (or any other social ill, like debt or traffic) to some structural explanation, then people will accuse you of making excuses for criminals. They want people they can BLAME.
This is a distinctly capitalist flavor of ideology, a tendency to attack social issues at the level of the individual instead of the structural so as to atomize the working class and make them look inward for problems, rather than at the ruling class. Nowhere is this more evident than discussion of baseball’s so-called “Steroid Era.” No matter how much evidence we have that steroids were very low on the list of reasons that home runs spiked in the 1990s, people insist on elevating their importance because they can so neatly divide players into Good and Bad. Meanwhile, the owners get to go on exploiting the workers all the more…
Anyway, here’s a breakdown of everything from Undrafted this September…
Not sure I really nailed this post, but was trying to articulate why fans gravitate towards aging stars trying to make one last push.
Man, I’ve really been a broken record on this subject, haven’t I? Oh well, it just really grinds my gears when people talk about steroids…
It now seems likely that Robert Sarver will sell the Phoenix Suns — for his crimes of sexual harassment and racial insensitivity, he is going to be punished with an extra few billion dollars. We really have to normalize seizing the property of rich people. Who would even object?
My podcast co-host called me a “homer” for this piece of obviously objective analysis…
Speaking of the Lefty Specialists, we are aiming to have more episodes soon! But this month we got to talk to Miguel Garcia of Sports As A Weapon, and it was a really great convo, so check it out…