Farewell to Arms : What Has Happened to Pitchers? Specialists, Expansion Teams and Big Salaries Might Mean the End of the 300-Game Winner

If our boys would get off their duffs and introduce themselves to a lawn mower, or rekindle the love of the paper route, maybe baseball wouldn’t be in this mess.

So say--no kidding--some experts who grouse over one of the great shortages of our time: quality pitching in major league baseball.

“It’s probably the key question that every organization would ask in a summit meeting,” Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale said recently. “ ‘Where are all the hard throwers?’ ”

While teams are so starved for starters that the Padres would move reliever Craig Lefferts into the rotation, are so parched that Fernando Valenzuela is still a phone call away, a local scout for the Dodgers reports he has not clocked a high school pitcher this year whose fastball exceeds 81 m.p.h.

“I used to see a few guys throwing 85,” said Bob Bishop, a 10-year Dodger scout whose territory stretches from San Dimas to Santa Maria. “You would think you would find some guy popping the ball better than that. It’s just not happening.”

It’s not happening in baseball at a time when track stars still manage to shave nanoseconds from world records, in a year when a seemingly unbreakable long-jump mark was broken, in an age when basketball’s Michael Jordan keeps redefining the art form.

Only in baseball has the product become diluted. Only about baseball pitchers can it be argued that performers of the last generation were better than those of the present.

You don’t need pie charts to figure it out, only the baseball record book. The recent past offers, for starters, Nolan Ryan (a work in progress), Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Catfish Hunter, Bert Blyleven, Jerry Koosman, Jim Kaat, Ferguson Jenkins, Jim Palmer, Don Sutton, Don Drysdale, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro--all pitchers who have either made the Hall of Fame or can make cases.

In 1969, Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched 28 complete games. Last season, the New York Yankees’ entire pitching staff combined for three, an all-time low.

Today, only Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden and maybe Bret Saberhagen, possess the potential to reach iron-man milestones, although Gooden at 27 may be a longevity risk because of recent arm surgery.

Hard to believe in this age of sore arms and the six-inning quality start that the New York Mets of the late 1960s produced four of the greatest arms ever--Seaver, Ryan, Koosman and Tug McGraw.

Not only great pitchers all, but marathon men. Seaver and Ryan won 300 games. Koosman posted 222 victories in 19 seasons, 12 in which he pitched more than 200 innings. McGraw, one of the great relievers, appeared in 824 games, 13th most.

And it was a cold day in you-know-where when one of those guys went on the disabled list.

“When I quit, my arm was fine,” said Koosman, now a pitching coach for the Mets’ Class-A team in Columbia, S.C. “I quit (in 1985) because I was ready to come home and spend time with my kids.”

No one denies that the classic fastball pitcher has become an endangered species.

“When I was in A-ball, at least half of our staff threw over 90 m.p.h.,” Koosman said. “I might have one guy on my staff that can hit 90. I’m not the only guy saying this. All the clubs are in the same position.”

Theories as to why this is happening, however, are as numerous as cold remedies.

Bishop also offers the most sociological explanation, suggesting that a lack of work ethic might be the cause.

“Kids have gotten away from mowing lawns and throwing newspapers,” he said, quite seriously. “When you’re pushing a lawn mower, you’re using your wrists. Kids don’t pull weeds, so their hands don’t get strong. Now, they go skiing or go to the beach. You shake hands with some of these kids now, you get a dead fish.”

The most popular theory blames the proliferation of the split-finger fastball and other so called “junk pitches.”

Too many pitchers, emulating their big league idols, are throwing the pitches too young and hurting their arms. Most of the great pitchers who achieved longevity pretty much stuck to the basics: fastball, curve, changeup.

“We don’t like to see the young kids throw trick pitches,” Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda said. “We think those pitches are tough on their arms. This is why you see a lot of these guys on the disabled list. How many guys are getting their arms operated on as opposed to 20 years ago?”

A lot more. Last year, 14 pitchers made at least two trips to the disabled list.

The split-finger fastball was popularized by Manager Roger Craig of the San Francisco Giants, who passed it along to the masses and turned mediocre pitchers into millionaires. Former Houston Astro pitcher Mike Scott was a journeyman until Craig taught him the splitter.

Scott cashed it into a few good seasons and won the Cy Young Award in 1986, but the pitch exacted a toll on his arm and other practitioners’.

The splitter is so potentially damaging that the Giants don’t teach the pitch anymore in their minor league system, Bishop said.

There are other theories, some conflicting.

Koosman suggests that pitchers don’t throw enough these days.

“When I was a kid, I threw rocks, corncobs, anything,” he said. “I threw a lot.”

Drysdale agrees.

“They don’t throw as much anymore and they don’t work as hard,” he said. Conversely, Ron Perranoski, the Dodgers’ pitching coach, thinks pitchers throw too much before they get to the major leagues.

Mention Pedro Martinez, younger brother of Ramon and one of the organization’s top young pitching prospects, and watch Perranoski’s eyes light up.

“He didn’t pitch Little League, he didn’t pitch high school, he didn’t go to college,” Perranoski says with delight.

One pitching coach interviewed blamed cable television for the depletion of quality pitching.

“You can sit in your house and watch anything you want any time of the day,” he said. “That can detain you from going outside and playing catch.”

Nintendo has also been mentioned as a culprit.

Bishop, the Dodger scout, generally is at a loss to explain the lack of pitching prospects. He has hunches:

--Specialization. More and more high school athletes are concentrating on one sport year round. He thinks the more glamorous high school sports, football and basketball, are stealing some of the better athletes.

Bishop said talented basketball players, often potential pitching prospects because of their size and growth potential, aren’t going out for baseball as much.

“In my area, I don’t know that there’s a pitcher taller than 6-foot-5,” he said.

--Weightlifting. A well-defined upper body may be desirable, but it is no good for the pitching motion. The right kind of weightlifting can strengthen pitching muscles, and lower-body weight work is essential for power pitchers, but looking like Hulk Hogan isn’t the answer.

“They’re using weights before they’re fully grown,” Bishop said. “A pitcher needs elasticity. Once you lose that, you’re done.”

Drysdale, a power pitcher turned broadcaster, said he has witnessed a de-evolution of pitchers.

“They talk about a guy pitching 200 innings now, like it’s the greatest thing since round wheels.” Drysdale said. “When you used to pitch 200 innings, they’d say, ‘What did you do for the other third of the season?’ ”

The numbers support Drysdale. Only two pitchers, Frank Viola and Tom Candiotti, have thrown more than 200 innings in each of the last six seasons. And Candiotti throws the knuckleball, a low-stress pitch.

The last pitcher to log 300 innings, once a common occurrence among power pitchers, was Steve Carlton in 1980.

Sixteen times in his career, Seaver pitched more than 200 innings in a season.

Those days are gone.

Today, a pitcher’s progress is monitored by radar guns and pitch counts.

“In my day, the pitch count was if the batters started pulling you,” Drysdale said. “Or if they started hitting you too hard. That was the pitch count.”

No doubt, the demand for starting pitchers is greater than before. Unlike the days of four-man rotations, most teams today employ five starters in the rotation.

Expansion has also been a critical factor in the dilution process. Once, there were only 16 teams to stock. Next year baseball expands to 28 teams with the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies joining the National League.

How would you like to be the pitching coach next season in Denver, where it has been calculated that a batted ball will travel 9% farther in the mile-high altitude as compared to sea level?

Specialization, too, has changed the game. The proliferation of middle relievers and closers has reduced the demand for hard-throwing starters who can go nine innings.

Today, six innings constitutes a quality start.

If workhorse starters are not in demand, it logically follows that supply would diminish.

Drysdale blames a lack of baseball knowledge in management for allowing specialists to take over the game and turn starting pitchers into part-time workers.

He said the advent of the million-dollar middle reliever and the $3-million closer necessitates using those pitchers when they’re not needed.

“Somewhere down the line, management has allowed that to happen,” Drysdale said. “It’s a lack of baseball people on the higher echelon, in my opinion.”

The changes have likely altered the face of baseball forever. So take a long, last look at Nolan Ryan. Cherish the recent memories of Seaver and Carlton.

Try to compute the chances of one organization producing the likes of Ryan, Seaver, Koosman and McGraw in one minor league harvest.

Under current conditions, with starters pitching fewer innings and getting fewer starts, with more pitchers going to college, the chances of there ever being another 300-game winner appears slim.

The 29-year-old Clemens, who most closely resembles the power pitchers of the past, still needs to average 16 victories a year for the next 10 seasons to reach 300. It’s not beyond reach, but some wonder what incentive Clemens, already a multimillionaire, will have to stick around that long.

Gooden is two years younger than Clemens and has 132 victoriesbut he is no longer the power pitcher he was and his longevity is in doubt because of arm problems.

Koosman said: “Some of the salaries are so big, some of them might have to quit baseball to take care of their businesses. The incentive to play that long is not going to be there.”

Veteran Jack Morris, 37, began the season 84 victories shy of 300, but only 10 pitchers in baseball history have won that many after his age.

“I think your 300 guys have about had it after Ryan retires,” Drysdale said.

Still, the scouts scour the neighborhoods, searching. The major league teams look down for answers. The scouts don’t have them.

‘We can’t materialize them if they’re not there,” Bishop said.

Bishop says he doesn’t understand. There’s a fortune to be made in the pitching business and history tells him that athletes, over time, are supposed to get better, not worse.

“Our technology is supposed to be better,” he complains. “We have all this technology, better foods, special diets . . . “

But maybe not enough paper routes.

Where Have All the Arms Gone? With increased reliance on middle relievers and closers, starting pitchers no longer log the innings they used to. A comparison between the leaders in the 1991 season and 25 years ago.

INNINGS PITCHED 1967, American League: 13 pitchers with 250 or more Dean Chance, Minnesota: 284 Jim Lonborg, Boston: 273 Earl Wilson, Detroit: 264 1991, American League: 2 pitchers with 250 or more Roger Clemens, Boston: 271 1/3 Jack McDowell, Chicago: 253 2/3 Jack Morris, Minnesota: 246 2/3 1967, National League: 2 pitchers with 250 or more Jim Bunning, Philadelphia: 302 Gaylord Perry, San Francisco: 293 Ferguson Jenkins, Chicago: 289 1991, National League: 2 pitchers with 250 or more Greg Maddux, Chicago: 263 Tom Glavine, Atlanta: 246 Mike Morgan, Dodgers: 236 1/3 COMPLETE GAMES 1967, American League: 16 pitchers with 10 or more Dean Chance, Minnesota: 18 Jim Lonborg, Boston: 15 Steve Hargan, Cleveland: 15 1991, American League: 4 pitchers with 10 or more Jack McDowell, Chicago: 15 Roger Clemens, Boston: 13 Jack Morris, Minnesota: 10 Jaime Navarro, Milwaukee: 10 1967, National League: 15 pitchers with 10 or more Ferguson Jenkins, Chicago: 20 Juan Marichal, San Francisco: 18 Tom Seaver, New York: 18 Gaylord Perry, San Francisco: 18 1991, National League: 0 pitchers with 10 or more Tom Glavine, Atlanta: 9 Dennis Martinez, Montreal: 9 Terry Mulholland, Phil. 8 Source: The Sporting News Baseball Guide; the Baseball Encyclopedia