THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

They had the Miracle On Ice ahead of Paul Henderson and Team Canada ‘72?  Wow.

Actually, the Summit Series was part of #8.

#8:

“[Latin Players] don’t walk off the island.”?  (OK, there’s always been hackers).

How about the Japanese and the NPB?  No one had seen a delivery like Nomo’s for a long time, if ever.

The impact of Japanese players is definitely muted in MLB.  The same could have been said in the NHL for the longest time, vis-a-vis the Russians.  It’s only when the young players defected (Mogilny, Bure, Federov) that the true Russian impact was felt.  Until then, it was limited to the 4 or 5 Russians in their decline years (Markov, Larianov, Fetisov, Kasatonov, and maybe Krutov).

Going from memory here, and I’ll update from home anythign I get wrong:

#11: Neutral zone trap.  This is the style of play popularized by any team coached by Jacques Lemaire.  That his Devils found such success with the defense-style play turned everyone into a hater of defense. 

The MLB equivalent would be 1968.  The difference is that it’s far easier for MLB to manipulate scoring than it is for any other league.  Where are the traditionalists when that happens?

#12: the WHA.  At one point, NHL salaries actually eclipsed MLB salaries in the 1970s.  This was entirely due to the effect of having a rival league, and that league setting the trend by signing NHL stars, starting with Bobby Hull, then a retired Gordie Howe.

MLB doesn’t have that equivalent.  I guess the closest we can come in this respect is the Ueberroth collusion (in reverse).

#13: Bobby Orr.  The equivalent of Wayne Gretzky, winning best defensemen every year he’s in the league, though his knees gave out far too early.

I think the closest you can come here, if I can go back a few more years (just as I cheated to get Babe Ruth), is Ted Williams.  Otherwise, Alex Rodriguez.

#14: the offensive defensemen.  No more stay at home, these guys joined in the action to score. 

I’ll submit Cal Ripken as the wave here, stopping the tide of the astroturf-fueled defense-first shortstops, and bringing us the wave of hitting shortstops.

#15: capping the power play.  When a team would get a two-minute penalty, the player would stay in the box the whole two minutes.  Until the Canadiens scored too many goals, they changed this to “or until a goal is scored”. 

There’s nothing really in this for baseball.  In terms of manipulating the scoring with player personnel, I’ll nominate the DH. 

#16: (I forgot)

#17: the Stastny brothers.  Defection of a top Czechslovakian player (top player, period), his brother, and afterwards, a third brother?  This is like with the Cuban players.  I think the difference is how much on the cusp the hockey players were, at the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Fidel maybe?  We’ll see.

#18: the Zamboni.  Since I already used the artificial turf for #4, I’ll go with playing equipment.

#16 was the slapshot I think.  With the goalie mask making goalies tougher to score on, players started slapshots (instead of wrist or snap shots).

I think the 1993-present juiced ball era is the closest to that.

Actually, I don’t think that was a good choice for #16.  In terms of player-initiated weapon, I’ll go with body armor for hitters.  Or maybe thin-handled bats.

#4 is the goalie mask… I don’t think there’s any baseball equipment that has had that transformative effect.

How about the “new ball” rule to end dead ball era? (when the ball is scratched or muddy umpires should replace it with a new one) It may not qualified as equipment invention, but the rule changed this sport as much as anything could.

reference:

http://www.homerunweb.com/livelyball.html

"… last 60 years”.

Sorry, my mistake.

About the equipment, I got another one: batting helmet. Though I don’t know how much influence it has.

From wiki: “Despite the fatal beaning of Ray Chapman in 1920, batting helmets were not made mandatory in Major League Baseball until 1971, a result of several years of hospitalizations due to injury from hits to the head. However, they had been in use for several years prior to being made mandatory. In the 1950s and 1960s, players batting without helmets still used plastic inserts inside their baseball caps. After 1971, players who were grandfathered in could still choose whether or not they wanted to use a helmet. Some players, most notably Norm Cash and Bob Montgomery continued to bat without a helmet through the end of their playing careers. Montgomery was the last to do so in 1979.”