Two Years After the Hitting Boom, Game Goes Bust : Has a Tortoise Ball Replaced Rabbit of 1987? Statistics for ’89 Say Yes

As recently as two years ago, many people associated with the sport, primarily pitchers and former pitchers, contended they could detect a heartbeat in a baseball without the benefit of a stethoscope.

Others, St. Louis Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog among them, said they had conducted their own semi-scientific experiments and concluded the 1987 variety was infinitely livelier than its predecessor. The weight of circumstantial evidence was on their side.

Home runs zoomed to record levels in both major leagues. Batting averages flourished. Baseball officials denied any knowledge of tampering and offered laboratory results as corroboration. Beleaguered pitchers scoffed at the tests and searched through their tool kits for an equalizer.

The era of the so-called rabbit ball lasted one season. Suddenly, mysteriously, the life force seeped out of the spheroid in 1988. Either that or players unlearned everything they knew about hitting. Home run totals plunged dramatically. Batting averages slipped to their lowest levels of the decade. The pendulum swung, violently.

After such a correction in the balance of the game, it was expected that offense would demonstrate minor gains in 1989. Instead, the market for hitters has continued to drop, particularly in the National League.

One theory, perhaps harebrained, holds that, having removed the rabbit from the ball after the 1987 season, the doctors of baseball scheduled more surgery before this season to implant a tortoise. Or haven’t you noticed how much slower the sport has become?

Not only are balls not sailing over fences at the meager rate established a year ago, they aren’t even squirting through the infield with the same frequency. The presence of the 1969 Mets at Shea Stadium during the past weekend underlined the National League’s reduction in output. Those Mets batted .242 two decades ago. It remains the lowest average for a pennant winner in league history.

The dubious record is in jeopardy. Consider that only four of the 12 National League clubs have bettered .242 in the first quarter of this season. At the start of play Monday, the division leaders were hitting .243 (Reds) and .231 (Mets). The entire league was batting .24067. Not since 1908, the midst of the dead-ball era, has the National League finished a season with a lower composite mark (.23895).

In all, nine National League teams are hitting below last year’s standards. The San Diego Padres have dipped 14 points, the Chicago Cubs 19 points, the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers 23 points (to a bewildering .225) and the once-mighty Mets 25 points.

The only comparable season in recent history was 1968, when the rule of pitchers was so absolute--Don Drysdale had a streak of 58 consecutive scoreless innings, Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 earned-run average and the All-Star Game was played to a 1-0 decision, the only run scoring without benefit of a hit--that the mound was lowered and the strike zone was pinched as a direct result.

Although the falloff in the American League, which has held the upper hand in offensive statistics since implementing the designated hitter in 1973, hasn’t been nearly as precipitous, there has been a major power shortage.

After a record 2,634 home runs in 1987 and 1,901 in 1988, the American League currently is on a pace to hit fewer than 1,650 in 1989. Eight of the 14 clubs are struggling with lower averages than a year ago. The composite is .25867, compared with .25929 in 1988 and .265 in 1987.

Injuries to stars, notably Jose Canseco, Dave Winfield and George Brett, may explain some of the hitting deficiency, but then such standout pitchers as Ted Higuera, Frank Viola and Jack Morris have been disabled or ineffective.

Injuries also have plagued National League teams, sidelining Andy Van Slyke, Andre Dawson, Willie McGee, Eric Davis and Kirk Gibson among others, but not to the extent indicated by early figures.

From a .261 average in 1987, the composite average fell to .24826 in 1988 and now .24067. The projected number of home runs in 1989, after years of 1,824 and 1,279, will fall below 1,200.

So where have all the hitters gone? For some time now, one of the arguments against additional expansion in the majors was the thin crop of pitchers. Indeed, all clubs have made pitching a priority in their scouting.

But that concern is not reflected in baseball’s current state of affairs. Check out the California Angels. A year ago, the California staff had one of the worst ERAs in the game. With the addition of one veteran (Bert Blyleven) and one rookie (Jim Abbott), their 2.67 mark now ranks second only to the Dodgers’ 2.48.

Suddenly, big-league clubs are desperate to add hitting. The top team average in the National League after Sunday’s games belonged to St. Louis, at .258. Forty years ago, that mark would have exceeded the mark of only two National League clubs. Fifty years ago, it would have qualified as the lowest average in either league.

Look at this from another vantage point. Because of their deep pitching and the absence of a serious challenger in the East, the Mets remain heavy favorites to capture a division title, if not to represent the National League in the World Series.

Yet their .231 average not only puts them well behind their 1969 predecessors, honored on Old-timers Day, but also threatens to place them in the select company of the 1906 Chicago White Sox.

Those Sox set the all-time standard for the lowest average recorded by a league champion. They batted exactly .230, eighth in an eight-team league, and only two regulars finished above .260. For their efforts in winning a pennant and the World Series, in which they batted .198, they were immortalized as the “Hitless Wonders.”