Old advertising

[JohnU]

Happened upon this site where it has lots of ads featuring athletes.

These were interesting.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Tobacco, alcohol and shaving- ad targets for the male baseball audience of the day...In a sick kind of way, I would have enjoyed seeing Mark McGwire doing Andro ads, Mike Leake pimping The Gap, maybe Barry Bonds in a bacne commercial and Pete Rose stumping for an on line gambling service.

 

[JohnU]

Most players pimped for the cigarette companies back when almost all men, and a lot of women, smoked.

 

[eburg5000]

Shows how gullible we are to

 

[JohnU]

I have found a lot of old ads that say "doctors who smoke recommend Camels."

Have to wonder, what the hell did they think was causing people to hack up their lungs every day?
I have COPD from smoking and it ain't like I am the first person ever to get it. I see it's what killed Phil Everly, btw ...

 

[eburg5000]

Its amazing how far we have come since those days. some good and some not so good. I don't think the game is exciting today, as it was back then, but I was a kid back then and everything was exciting.
A few years ago the Baseball channel showed a 1949 World Series game between the Yankees and Dodgers at the polo grounds in Red Barber was announcing the game it seemed that the fans were much more into the game, than they are today. Much more excitement in the air. They seemed to respect the players on both teams more.
Of course that was America's game back then , and we didn't have 2 hundred channels to watch on TV, or computers and cell phones

 

[eburg5000]

Sorry for the bad grammar. my writing skills needs a lot of work.

 

[Redsfan1507]

There was a time where a piece of meat roasting on a fire was cause for a rare celebration. As time advances, the more people have, the less they appreciate it. Before PED's a guy that hit .280 with 20 HR and 85 RBI was a hitter of note, too. Votto hits .308/24/80 and people want to dump him. Perspective is everything. I think if PEDs are really on the decline toward an age without them, pitching and defense will be recognized again, and triple crown type expectation numbers will be more rare.

 

[JohnU]

Baseball fans go to the game now because it's an outing. They spend more time at the concession rack than watching the game. Even at the minor league games I attend, the kids spend half the game running up and down the steps. They don't even care about the game. Mommy is spending her time chasing the kid and the daddy doesn't even know what a balk is.

I am in the rare group who goes to actually watch the game and at least in Gary, the inning splits are only a couple of minutes -- and the game is over in about 2:30, not 4 hours. The beer and brats are still too expensive but the parking there is free and there's no hassle.

I don't need an exploding scoreboard, frankly, and 10-decibel rap music between innings. The mascot can buy a fuckin' ticket for all I care.

Just play ball.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Dayton is close to me. Low Class A, but really nice, always sold out park. You can get a seat for $5. Food/drink is expensive, but much less than at GABP, which is supposed to be one of the better "values" in MLB.

GABP is still expensive- a cheap seat might be $15 but it still costs $10-12 to park if you only want to walk 3 blocks. A beer is $8, and a big dog is $4.50... Although they do have $1 dogs supposedly,somewhere in the park. They run some deals- 4 for $40 etc. but you could feed a family of 4 all week at the grocery for what you would spend on the total for a 3 hour game. It has to effect attendance.

For the past several years, I get a weekend season ticket for about $900 (2seats) in the sun/moon deck. Doesn't include parking. Not everyone can do that.

 

[chico ruiz]

i breathe that same rarified air john. i suspect that i would enjoy taking in a ballgame with you and 1507. we could see who manages better from the scout boxes. although, i think you might get irritated with me calling for too many sac bunts. but, the people you reference are exactly the type mlb is going after. mlb will go to great lengths to make the experience as interactive as possible. so, i guess we will just have to get use to it. i've actually developed a skill i wasn't aware i had. which is to say; i can tune out all that peripheral nonsense. however, i do wish that votto would change his 'paint it black' theme song. he may feel a little down in the dumps, but i'm not. i imagine 300 at-bats (forced listenings) a year at gabp gets a little oppressive, if not morbid, for the season ticket holder.

to an earlier point by 1507 about shifts and defensive trends. i'm hoping that shifts won't work forever. sooner than later actually. there was a time -long ago- when shifts probably wouldn't have worked well at all. in fact, i think it's possible that joe maddon's a pioneer because this SABR frontier simply wasn't available in decades past. players weren't swinging as hard and would have routinely beaten the shifts. we've seen a significant increase in strikeouts in recent seasons, which suggests that hitters are sacrificing bat control for bat speed.

so, this is my daily prayer to the baseball gods: please don't allow this trend to continue forever. It might take a while to sink in, but if managers keep putting three infielders on one side of second base, eventually many and perhaps most of the hitters will learn to hit the ball where the fielders aren't. and maybe (just maybe), as a bonus for those of us who actually enjoy all aspects of the great game, the torrent of strikeouts will slow down some. maybe john mcgraw can start haunting all the yards in baseball, from rookie league to aaa to mlb.

bottom line, though? and this is what gives me hope; shifting probably does help, but you won't have a good infield defense without good defensive infielders. the rays' defense might have saved 85 runs in the season i referenced, but only some small fraction of that number was probably due to all the shifting. it may be a pipe dream, but it's a honest and sincere one from the heart of a inspired, die-hard, hopelessly romantic, baseball purist.

 

[eburg5000]

The most expensive seats I have every sat in at GABP were the worst. Kids standing on their seat looking behind them people talking on their cells. No one was watching the game or really cared about the game. It was annoying to me. I have been to other parks and it wasn't that way. Maybe I just picked a bad night to get good seats.
I like to go to spring training, because most of the fans there are more serious fans. At least in Florida. Where there are plenty of other things to do with your family.

 

[JohnU]

I read somewhere that the super shifts aren't doing as much as they would like to believe, other than getting into the hitter's head. Eventually, what goes around, comes around.

If you watch enough ball, the infielder going over to cover second on a hit-run is as likely to pick up the ball and tag the bag as watch it go behind him. We only notice when one of those to events occur and only cuss when it hurts our team.

The problem with advanced metrics is that no manager in Heaven, Hell or Earth can call on all the details for every hitter. Eventually, somebody has to crunch numbers and say ... this is an xx-percentage play. The advanced data is fine for building a roster and developing trends, but the people who are living it as biblical are really trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole. It's fine to have the data, interpret it and build a concept, but fully something else to call it into play for every bit of minutiae.

Bryan Price may go into the season with the SABR book in his hand but when the game is on the line, he can only do what his roster allows him to do. Sometimes, you just yell: Let's turn two here!

Sometimes, BABIP is just a matter of an infielder getting his spikes caught in the turf.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

John makes a good point about the shift. Shortstop/ manager of the Indians Lou Boudreau wrote a book entitled "Player-Manager" in which he tells the story of deploying the shift against Ted Williams in the mid 1940's. After the Splendid Splinter almost single handedly beat the Indians in the first game of a doubleheader, Lou during the second game implemented the shift against Williams his last three PA's in which he walked twice and grounded out to second. Lou Boudreau is quoted as saying the reason for the shift was to try and make Williams do something different.

Ted Williams ties into the discussion about fans perspective on Joey Votto as well. For as great a hitter and obvious Hall of Fame caliber player Teddy Baseball was, there were Boston fans that were critical of Williams for being in their opinion too selective at the plate and not sacrificing plate discipline to advance and or score runners. Some Boston fans saw him as having a self serving hitting approach with little regard for team play. Interesting pararel among two great hitters separated by 60 years.

 

[JohnU]

Votto can do what he does and rightfully expect others to improve their own game, or he can do what others expect of him and establish that nobody is going to improve their game because Votto didn't.

 

[Hit-n-Run]

That's the problem in a nut shell with the Reds roster. Votto can only take what he's given based on the opposing pitcher's willingness to pitch to him. Votto's productivity in regard to RBI's corresponds with the success of the two hole during his career to this point.

The opposing team's game plan is to not let Votto beat them. All they have to do is walk him and odds of getting out of the inning scoreless goes up significantly. Until the two hole, clean up and fifth hole are filled with productive hitters it'll continue to be the same old story. Jay Bruce can fill one of those spots, IMO, not enough for sustained offense.

 

[JohnU]

Well, we have a new dugout staff. That's what we all thought we needed, so let's see where that takes us. I figure 2 hits a week more by everybody in the lineup will add about 35 points to the team batting average.

 

[Redsfan1507]

Twenty five years ago, predominant offensive development started with attempts at young hitters gaining well rounded fundamentals. They emphasized more aspects of the game, including hitting the other way, behind the runner, bunting, and sacrificing power for contact with 2 strikes.

For a multitude of reasons, including the large bonus baby money and pressure to run them to MLB ASAP, development started shifting toward just asking hitters to do more of what they already could do- especially if they had power-at the plate or on the mound. Smaller parks and diluted (increased numbers of them) pitching sort of played into that strategy, at least for hitters. Some people mistakenly thought Dusty's homer or starve philosophy was old school, but it really was more MLB Millennium thinking...Earl Weaver really pioneered a decade or two before others followed-distain for bunts, steals and sacs, and preference for the homer. As the parks got smaller, the managing and plate philosophy development got more narrow.

So, IMO, after PED's the game is going to go back to what mere mortals could produce again. Parks are different size, but the bases are still 90 feet...so IMO, if you have some speed and can get on base, it allows for more consistent offense than depending on the variables of power. Winners will always need homers, and no one wants to see global dead ball era offense, but moving runners, especially without hits, scores runs. Fans might like winning 3-2 4 days a week better than winning 12-7 on Monday and losing 4-1 the next three days I think. So, I'm a small ball and strategy fan-because I think without it, the team is unbalanced.

Also, instead of the perspective that hitters have to take what is given them, I prefer to see effective offense as systemically making the opposition do things they don't want to do...like having to make a lot of throws holding runners and chasing stealers, decide if they need to walk a guy to set up a force after an advance, pull D in to guard a bunt, play the shift exposing opportunities against it, throw more fastballs and less breaking balls in the dirt because of steal threats and RISP...to hitters that can punish their distracted and frustrated asses with a double in the gap, or a homer on a pressured fat pitch. Hitters need to believe they will be heros for a walk, steal or advancing a runner in a win, not just for the rare homer.

I'm hoping the Reds can buy into using ALL the weapons on the roster more. Beat themselves less, and make other teams occupy more time chasing the Reds game plan, and less time executing their will against the Reds weaknesses. If so, I predict lots of fun. If they spend all year doing the same failed things, whining about money, injuries and how they miss Dusty, not so much.

 

[chico ruiz]

that's exactly what i was driving at in my previous posts 1507. the only thing i would disagree with is the so-called potential whining. most mlb players don't whine about injuries. they all have varying levels of tolerance for pain that will allow them to play, or not. they also know that they could be playing with a different club tomorrow. if they can accept that, they can accept a new manager. my comments / observations and subsequent postings are more about overall trends, and possible future trends. here are some more questions to generate discussion. 1507 touched on some of these in the excellent previous post. what have the younger prospects / players been taught? how are they approaching the at-bats from rookie league on up? in the last twenty years how much emphasis has been put on bat control? hit-n-run points out the 2-hole for the reds last year was inadequate (to say the least) and how it affected votto's potential run production. i remember looking at cozart's hitting chart, at the all-star break last year, and it was horrifying. he had hit the ball a grand total of 4 times to the right side of the field. not just base hits mind you, but simply putting the ball in play. he did get much better over the rest of the season. it's not correct to say, "If you watch enough ball, the infielder going over to cover second on a hit-run is as likely to pick up the ball and tag the bag as watch it go behind him. We only notice when one of those to events occur and only cuss when it hurts our team." it's not dumb luck. it's baseball. there are simply fewer hitters that possess the ability to hit to the opposite field, let alone hit it on the ground. how was the infield positioned when a hitter like barry larkin was at-bat? they couldn't cheat him one way or another. why? because he could hit the ball all over the field. bat control. in fact, many of the pre-hall of fame induction interviews with his past managers and contemporaries (teammates and opponents alike) said this was what made him great. bat control. how he could handle the bat and spray the ball around. in many cases, he put the ball where he wanted to and moved runners. some call that doing the 'little things' right. i call it the kind of baseball i want to watch. and, in my mind, they're the big things that are the difference between winning and losing. many fans have been anesthetized into accepting the base to base style of baseball as the norm. and part of that is due to SABR. what was the billy beane's character's line in 'money ball?' paraphrasing if they're are going to bunt, take the out. forget the guy going to second base. take the out at first." that's ridiculous and hollywoodized of course. how many outs are there? what inning is it? what's the score? who's pitching? who's running? the question I'm posing is which way will the shifts take the game as a whole? because it's not just the super shifts put on big papi and ted williams I'm addressing. the rays come to gabp april 12, 13, 14. dollars to donuts madden puts a shift, of some sort, on cozart. they will dare cozart to hit it to right field. you can't shift on the larkins, pedroias and jeters. you can't cheat them. is the inside / out swing a god given talent? why have there been fewer and fewer of these type of players / hitters in the last 20 years? a manager won't put a hit and run on if the batter can't hit it to the right side of the field. will mesoraco, frazier, and cozart continue to try and yank the ball? can a new coaching staff teach a player to unlearn what he's been doing for 10 years? why don't we see more batters going with the pitch on the outside part of the plate? so, will the shifting force organizations to take a different approach teaching hitting at the lower levels? the reds only have one player who can consistently go to the opposite field, and there are knuckle heads out there who think he should change his approach. way too many swings and misses. nothing more boring to watch than base to base. the game was played for well over a century in a way i think we all appreciated. it's time to get back to it.

 

[Redsfan1507]

All players struggle. Young players most of all. Young players that want to play, while they struggle, do what their manager tells them to do. ALL struggling young players on the Reds are trying to pull the ball. I don't believe in coincidence.

The amazing thing for me is, Drew Stubbs and Todd Frazier made it to MLB, largely due to the percieved notion that they would display power as the got older. Frazier didnt really show that until AAA, and then only above average HR numbers. Stubbs never did, until his first full season in MLB. Now, anyone that rides a hunch of power combined with a sub .260 batting average all the way to MLB, sure as he'll isn't likely to start wanting to become Rod Carew after he arrives, and coaches looking to ride the status quo arent likely to convince them to either...So, there is some bad science being practiced in the Reds player development department, with zero consideration for alternate execution at the big club. They either need to assess the real tools a kid already has and use them, or get a lot better at teaching what they prioritise.

Too much baloney has been fed to coaches that young players today are too sensitive to take criticism, and lose confidence trying something they aren't already good at. It's BS, because no one gets better without both, unless they didnt need help in the first place. No one is born knowing geometry either, so the Reds would be a lousy engineering firm if they didnt teach math, and drafted interns they thought might suddenly grow math skills as they got older.