No, really.

It was the era with the greatest variety of ssuccessful strategies - power, pitching, defense, fundamentals, speed, small ball, starters pitching complete games, bullpens being used for several innings, closers, no closers, etc.

It had stars, but few superstars - Ricky stands out, a couple of others mmaybe.

But there was a remarkable balance.

It reaped the harvest of several decades of African American players being in the game since 1947.

Different tteams won championships almost every year:

1979 Pitt. And Balt.

1980 Phil and KC

81 NYY and LA

82 St. L and Mil.

83 Balt. and Phil.

84 Det. and SD

85 St.L. and KC

86 NYM and Boston

87 Minn. and St.L.

88 LA and Oak.

89 Oak and SF

1990 Oak. and Cin.

1991 Minn. and Atl.

1992 Atl. and Tor.

1993 Tor. and Phil.

1995 Clev. and Atl.

1996 NYY and Atl.

1997 Clevel. And Flor.

so for almost 20 years, there was extraordinary parity among competitors.

I thinthink I we need to add:

It was before steroids overwhelmed the game, before sabermetrics overwhelmed the game, and before Three True Outcomes replaced baseball.

We need a,change in the business model, with mmunicipal ownership, we need to raise the fences in height and push them back, we need to lower ticket prices, and create incentives for up to half of the teams to, yes, return to artificial turf, which was ugly but improved the game.

crazy revolutionary

i don see a SEA in there

You're forgetting ugly uniforms and watered down teams.

Willie, Mickey and the Duke...pre expansion was a better brand of ball. Teams rode trains, the press tagged along. They played poker alongside Musial and Mantle. Kids played stickball, they emulated and worshipped the players. It was still America's Game, before the big money pimps ruined professional sports...

I mean it's all based on when you grew up watching the game right? The game was always better the era you fell in love with the sport.

I've watched more baseball this year as I have in last 3 years combined - it's still the greatest sport in the world. Has the game changed? Sure. No more than the game changed from the 1890's-1900's to 1920's-1930's, or the 1920's-1930's to the 1950's-1960's, to the 1980's-1990's, etc. The game evolves. Society evolves. Imagine how great the game in the 80's would have been if they weren't all doing cocaine in the dugout and partying every night after games? I'm all for athletes cleaning it up and focusing on how to be the best in their craft - and sure let them get paid. Why should the owners be the only ones making money off the game?

Kids still emulate their favorite players - if you don't think they do then you're just not around kids/fans of the sport.

The biggest issue is players moving teams -makes it harder for fans to connect with players are constantly changing - but that's as much on owners as it is on players.

the biggest issue is the lack of action on the basepaths

i have heard complaints lately the ball is soft. too many warning track outs

i like that trend. if legit, ten thousand ballplayers will have to get leaner and faster and hit it on the groundier

prolly though, we are still in the cold weather

Are they calling what I see on my TV Baseball still?

I agree with most of what Italyprof wrote, except for the artificial turf. Just as the juiced ball (and juiced players) gave too much of an advantage to power hitters, the rock-hard artificial turf of the seventies and eighties gave too much of an advantage to the Vince Coleman types.

Just because the game isn’t what you want it to be (aka what it was when you grew up with the game in most cases), doesn’t mean it still isn’t being enjoyed by millions of fans.

Funny you posted this italyprof, pretty much expresses my own feelings. I was going to start a thread not long ago, titled "I had a dream" in which I was going to say that in that dream I was a billionaire who'd buy a MLB franchise then would build a brand new ballpark which would be covered in hard astroturf with the deepest outfield dimensions in the league, draft or trade for the fastest players available, also guys with good range and gloves, sign them to contracts with cash bonuses for every stolen bases and triples to bring back the excitement of small ball, BillyBall or WhiteyBall, whatever you wanna call that.
I decided to shrug off the idea of that post cause I knew what kind of reactions it would generate and I didn't feel like debating baseball eras...

Anyhow, what I did though is create a Theme League about that era which I called The Golden Age Vol.2 1960-1999.
It's in Theme Leagues Classified if you or anybody else reading this is interested.

You guys gotta explain to me this yearning for hard astroturf....

Posted by badcentury on 5/6/2022 2:23:00 PM (view original):
You guys gotta explain to me this yearning for hard astroturf....

Well, to keep it simple, I LIKE players like Vince Coleman.

Since today's bam box ballparks (To quote Pete Rose) give an unfair advantage to power hitters, why not have a ballpark or two which would favor more athletic ball players and speedsters? Not saying for all ballparks, but a few to add diversity to the game.
I'm yearning to see hitters trying to hit to opposite field, to go with the pitch, rather than try to pull every pitches to bang homeruns or strike out.
Baserunners trying to stretch a double into a triple rather than trot to 2nd and guys stealing bases cause they know they can't always relly on HRs and the big inning.
In one word, excitement.
Homeruns use to be exciting, when there weren't that many but when they dominate the game like modern baseball and it's bam of whiff, takes away every other aspects of the game, less baserunning, less defense, less strategy, especially now with the universal DH, there isn't much room left for the thinking baseball man. Just throw as hard as you can and swing as hard as you can, limited and boring for baseball fans who have seen better.

I understand the yearning for the running game of the eighties, and I miss it too. The three true outcomes game of today, starting pitchers going five innings at most, and then a parade of relievers throwing 98mph at the top of the strike zone is getting boring. But as I am a Cubs fan, and thus have watched mostly National League games for most of my life, I remember the National League of the eighties as being dominated by rock-hard astroturf fields (Montreal, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Houston, Philadelphia...even Candlestick Park was astroturf for a while). I would say that, #1, speed plays on any surface. Vince Coleman was a threat on natural grass, and Willie McGee used to torture the Cubs at Wrigley. And #2, the wear and tear on the knees of players who played on astroturf (Andre Dawson and Cesar Cedeno, just off the top of my head) shortened the careers of some great players.

I don't mind the artificial turf of today, which seems much more like real grass. But ballparks like Montreal or St. Louis in the eighties...man, the turf was so hard it looked like they just painted the parking lot cement green.

I understand what you're saying badcentury, I wouldn't want any ballplayer to play on something as hard as the turf they had in those ballparks you mentionned either. I have experienced them myself when I was playing college football and it WAS cement covered by a half inch rug which bruised your body every time you went down.
I'd settle for a modern day turf that's a little harder than natural grass in a spatious ballpark, but anyhow, was just some kind of fantasy, I don't think me becoming a billionaire is for this lifetime...
True that prime Rickey Henderson played mainly on grass, Oakland, Yankee Stadium, when he stole all those bases. And as a Cardinals fan, I totally remember McGee having great games at Wrigley or any surface for that matter.

My own favorite player back then, Garry Templeton (yeah the guy wearing #1 in Stl before Ozzie), who was NLs triples leader 3 consecutive seasons also had his career hampered by serious knee injuries from the Bush rug. So, yeah, I'm sure todays rug could do just fine, but push back those fences!

Posted by chargingryno on 5/5/2022 12:58:00 AM (view original):
I mean it's all based on when you grew up watching the game right? The game was always better the era you fell in love with the sport.

I've watched more baseball this year as I have in last 3 years combined - it's still the greatest sport in the world. Has the game changed? Sure. No more than the game changed from the 1890's-1900's to 1920's-1930's, or the 1920's-1930's to the 1950's-1960's, to the 1980's-1990's, etc. The game evolves. Society evolves. Imagine how great the game in the 80's would have been if they weren't all doing cocaine in the dugout and partying every night after games? I'm all for athletes cleaning it up and focusing on how to be the best in their craft - and sure let them get paid. Why should the owners be the only ones making money off the game?

Kids still emulate their favorite players - if you don't think they do then you're just not around kids/fans of the sport.

The biggest issue is players moving teams -makes it harder for fans to connect with players are constantly changing - but that's as much on owners as it is on players.

You guessed wrong, sorry. I grew up watching baseball in the 1960s - low batting averages, very little stealing, not a lot of power either, and the 1970s, and I loved 1970s baseball.

I thought the 80s baseball was good, but even in my early years on this website I still hated all that basestealing, hated artificial turf on principle etc.

Now, I realize that there were elements of that game of that era - a long 1980s that lasted from around 1978 to around 1994 really, that made it special - everything except the deadball was in, and there was that too in a way given some of the stadiums - I just watched a 1987 NLCS game in which the Cardinals are all but a deadball team, playing a 1920s/1990s era HR team, the Giants.

That is what I am saying - the 1980s had the baseball I grew up with - the 60s and 70s, it had the 1930s and 40s - the Oakland As were a gashouse gang in a way, Brett hit .388, etc., it had the home runs of the 90s and 2000s, it had pitching, it had defense, it had bunting, it had pitchouts, bandbox HR parks and hit a triple in the gap parks.

TTO ball is one size fits all. You say it is loved by millions but it is loved by many, many fewer millions than it was. And those who love this kind of baseball played today are fine with it, but all the other kinds of fans, who like all the other strategies are out in the cold, forever, because sabermetrics has said so, and it can't be taken back.

So, I stand by my statement, the 1980s were a golden age for baseball, because there was something for everyone, the greatest variety of approaches ever in any one era.

Posted by Funksteady1 on 5/6/2022 2:16:00 PM (view original):
Funny you posted this italyprof, pretty much expresses my own feelings. I was going to start a thread not long ago, titled "I had a dream" in which I was going to say that in that dream I was a billionaire who'd buy a MLB franchise then would build a brand new ballpark which would be covered in hard astroturf with the deepest outfield dimensions in the league, draft or trade for the fastest players available, also guys with good range and gloves, sign them to contracts with cash bonuses for every stolen bases and triples to bring back the excitement of small ball, BillyBall or WhiteyBall, whatever you wanna call that.
I decided to shrug off the idea of that post cause I knew what kind of reactions it would generate and I didn't feel like debating baseball eras...

Anyhow, what I did though is create a Theme League about that era which I called The Golden Age Vol.2 1960-1999.
It's in Theme Leagues Classified if you or anybody else reading this is interested.

Once I hated basestealing and triples. But I would now root for your team. May you win the lottery and do it !