This column first appeared in The Journal Gazette on Aug. 27, 1999.
Yes, America. Yes they are doing it again.
Mark McGwire jacking the baseball deep into the camera flashes, top hand flying off the bat, banshee howl rising from the crowd . . .
Sammy Sosa lashing out like a cobra, skipping toward first, giving us the fist thumping the heart and the sweet blown kiss . . .
Yes they are doing it again.
Can you believe 1998 was just a prequel, Mr. Maris?
Can you believe 70 and 66, those impossible numbers, are running for cover?
Can you believe some people would rather it not happen?
Stop at, oh, 65, Sammy. Stop at 60, Mac. For God's sake no more of this, no history squared, no turning something momentous into something tinny and cheap, like plunking ducks at the carnival to win a stuffed bear.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to play that game.
This is history, doggone it, so don't sour it with a bunch of griping. I don't want to hear that it's the ball. I don't want to hear that it's the pitching. I don't want to hear that this year means last year wasn't so special after all.
I just want to enjoy this, if you please. Which is why I prefer to listen to Carl Erskine, of Anderson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, who played with Jackie and Pee Wee and all the ringing names, and is a fine gentleman on top of it.
You want to know what Erskine thinks of Sosa and McGwire?
He thinks they're the product of their time. And he thinks that without an ounce of bitterness.
"Let's face it, all sports like offense,'' he said the other day, prior to an appearance at the Central YMCA. "And even though there's some things that really bother me about baseball today, I'm very cautious to start saying, `Well, in our day we did this, we did that.' I heard that when I was a player.''
And so you ask him about McGwire and Sosa, and he will tell you that part of their success is that they're aggressive hitters who sometimes go outside the strike zone, like Yogi Berra used to. And that they have to do that, because in this time – their time – the strike zone demands it.
"Maybe in some cases you can't blame the pitchers for grooving it because these guys are very aggressive,'' Erskine says. "And since the umpires are calling a wider strike zone, what's the hitter gonna do? He's not gonna stand there and take a pitch three inches outside if it's gonna be a strike. He's gonna try to hit it. That's just the way it is.''
And the way it was?
That was Erskine's time, the golden era of New York baseball, from the late '40s right on through the '50s. Erskine pitched a dozen seasons for the Dodgers then, averaging 10 wins a summer. He pitched in eight World Series. Once he struck out 14 batters in a Series game, then a record.
When he retired, in 1960, he could still occasionally get a strike call on a navel-high pitch. Today, you cannot get a strike call on a bottom-of-the-belt pitch. That's just the way it is.
"As a pitcher, it's astounding to me what has happened to the strike zone,'' Erskine concedes. "If you took the rectangle that represents the strike zone . . . you can take that rectangle now and lay it on its side, and that's sort of what the strike zone looks like. It's off the plate, particularly outside, and it's not very high. The high pitch is gone.
"Part of that has produced the home run barrage.''
And will he sneer at that? Will he whine? He will not. He remains that rarest of creatures, an old ballplayer who doesn't think the game died just because he left it. It changed, is all. And if there are aspects of that Erskine doesn't particularly care for, he at least understands them.
And so here he is, one last time, on the strike zone: "I think the hierarchy in baseball are afraid to touch it, because people are paying to come to the games in greater numbers, the TV side has pumped so many bucks into the game, and all put together I think the ownership says `Don't fix it, it's OK. I know the strike zone looks strange, but, boy, the fans are coming out, the game is healthy.'''
And, yes, America, McGwire and Sosa are doing it again.
Carl Erskine acknowledges that, smiles a little, all but shrugs.
