Letters to the Editor

No wonder Don Larsen was perfect Not really, but the rebroadcast of his 1956 gem showed that hitters back then were a different, lesser breed than today's sluggers. King Kaufman [2009-01-07]

• 78 AL playoff

  When they eventually play the Sox - Yankees playoff from Oct. 1978, check out the physical condition of the players.

  That was a game - perhaps the greatest ever, under the circumstances - in which each lineup had a large percentage of Hall of Fame and near Hall of Fame players.

  Only Reggie Jackson and Jim Rice, who were also notable football players in their youth, stand out as "muscled up" (and Jackson more so than Rice).

  So the game wasn't that different, condtioning-wise, in the late 1970s, from the days of Larsen's no-hitter.

  A game from ten years later would definitely reveal vastly different physiques on most players, Hall of Famers or not.

  What we're seeing on the field today is the result of almost thirty years of focus on year round conditioning and nutrition, the effects of which were exaggerated by the pervasiveness of steroids and other supplements.

  Additionally, starting in the 1980s, there began a revolution in hitting instruction, aided in large part by the use of the video camera. Hitters had the opportunity to examine their swings and at bats in ways that previous generations did not.

  Also there in the last two decades there has been an explosion in training methods and devices - pitching machines, soft-toss devices, sophisticated tees - that have helped even moderately talented players take their performace to another level.

  As a result of all this training you see more uniformity in technique today than you did in the 1970s and early 1980s.

  It has only been recently that emphasis and instruction for pitchers has begun to catch up.

  -- lutherhouse
  [Read lutherhouse's other letters]
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