Open Letter to Will Leitch of "The Sporting News"

Dear Will Leitch,

Each issue of The Sporting News leaves me completely confused by at least one if not several of your points of view when you write your opinion piece “Will’s World”. Your piece titled “Now. Here. This.” in the June 20, 2011 issue was no different.

You wrote “sports are always played better in the present, here and now.” The small irony is in the same issue Steve Greenberg writes a five page article about the greatest NBA teams of all-time placing the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls team at the top of his list. Greenberg goes as far back to the 1964-1965 Boston Celtics team as his 5^th best NBA team of all-time. Granted that’s Greenberg’s opinion not yours, but the article was a bigger spread in the same publication. Greenberg did not list one NBA team from this past season or any in the last five years to ten years. The only team within the past 15 years listed was the 1995-1996 Bulls team. The breakdown of the teams listed were, 4 from the ‘80’s, 2 from the ‘60’s, 2 from the ‘70’s, and 2 from the 90’s.

For some reason you felt it necessary to write, “Markets become more efficient, not less. There is more money to be made, more competition, more of a talent pool, more everything, right now, this second, than there has been any time in human history.”

Any fan living in a city that supports a small market MLB team would argue that you are completely wrong about efficiency in the market place. Major League Baseball is a buyer’s market. The Pittsburg Pirates are somewhat competitive this season but everyone is waiting for them to fall off. They have not won a NL Pennant since 1979 or a NL East Division Title since 1992. What about the Kansas City Royals? Their last division title was in 1985 when they were in the AL West. What about the Clippers, the Toronto Raptors, the Oakland A’s, the Denver Nuggets (have never made it to a NBA Finals), the New Orleans Hornets, the Detroit Lions, the Houston Texans, and the Minnesota Timberwolves? The list goes on and on.

A larger talent pool does not mean better competition or a better skill set. Here and now does not translate to a MLB player playing today being able to lay down a bunt. Here and now should not mean kids coming out of high school or with one year of college basketball under their belt can dominate your sport. More money to be made does not mean the athletes are better or the game is better. If anything that has a negative effect on the fans. A player averaging $200,000 each plate appearance better be a .300 hitter or better but few are. A player making $15 million a year should be able to grab 12 rebounds a game or shoot 90% from the free throw line. This is not always the case; actually this is rarely the case. How many rebounding titles did Shaquille O’Neal win?

How did you come up with this?

“If you put Babe Ruth on the field now, he would strike out every time he batted, thanks to the curveballs, the sliders and the fastballs – split finger or 100 mph – all things he never saw anything close to. (He’d be bewildered by all the nonwhite players, too). This, by definition, means sports are “better”.

What?!?! The curveball has always been in use in MLB. To the degree it is used in today’s game is debatable but the pitch was still being thrown. Same with the slider, they called it a “nickel curve” back in the “glory days”. Chief Bender played for 4 different teams between 1903 to1925 and is credited as being a “slider pitcher”. He won 212 regular season games as a “slider pitcher” and threw 3 complete games in the 1911 World Series. He played during the days of Babe Ruth (1914-1935) and Ty Cobb (1905-1928). Ruth was a multiple 20 game winner with the Boston Red Sox before becoming a full-time outfielder with the New York Yankees. Do you think he had never seen or heard of a slider? How big of a false assumption are you trying to make to prove your point?

How can you assume that “he’d be bewildered by all the nonwhite players, too”? That’s not a point of view based on a fact. That’s a point of view based on a lack of thought. The nonwhite players wouldn’t be surrounding him in a boxing ring threatening his life. The nonwhite players would be in their positions on the field, the same as they were when he played. Why would the color of the players taking their positions matter? If you’re trying to elude to the point that the players fielding their positions would be faster, that’s another none issue in a large degree because Ruth is thought of as a home run hitter not an opposite field hitter or a gap hitter. As long as there are not 20 foot tall players in left, center, and right, who cares what the ethnicity of the players are fielding their positions? After all he would strike out each time because he’s never seen a curveball or a slider… wait we’ve debunked that theory.

Something else that you are failing to understand about Babe Ruth, he played during the “dead ball era”, he swung a 2x4 for a bat to slow his swing down, the rules were different then, and he played in huge stadiums. To put this in another perspective, Ruth was hitting monster shot home runs using a wooden bat off a ball that would be similar to hitting a softball. As I mentioned, the rules were different for much of his playing career. Home runs that hit the foul pole were ground rule doubles. Home runs that hooked foul around the foul pole were called foul balls. Who knows how many more home runs he would have had, regardless of the color of the pitcher, had the rules and stadium dimensions been the same then as they are now. He was hitting in stadiums that were fields! They called those “fields” things like the Polo Grounds. Straight away center in Yankee Stadium was 520 ft! Left center was 460 ft. He was also doubling and tripling the total home run output of entire teams. That is something that will never happen again in any sport.

Sports are not always better in the here and now. Some things about sports are better now and some are better in the past. I don’t think fans of baseball during the dead ball era were worried about Babe Ruth being on steroids. Now one has to wonder how a journeyman player can have 30 plus home runs before the All-Star break. Athleticism in basketball is greater while the skills and abilities of NBA players have diminished. Pro football is pro football. NFL players have gotten bigger, stronger, and faster but that increase has been steady and the level of play has remained the same; the same skill set and athleticism is on par per era, per team and player. Was hockey better when the “Great One” was playing for the Edmonton Oilers in the ‘80’s? Who knows? Some points of view are valid and all are opinions… some just better than others. 

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