Fresh Out of the Gate, It’s a Home Run Derby

When Kevin Elster hit three home runs in the first regular-season game at San Francisco’s Pacific Bell Park, it was another example of the frequency with which baseballs are again being pounded. The 2000s have begun with a home run onslaught that has made the explosive ‘90s appear to have been a pitcher’s decade.

A total of 262 home runs were hit in the 95 games of the opening week, breaking the one-week record of 251 in 107 games last July.

A total of 57 were hit in 15 games April 7, breaking the one-day record of 55 in 17 games last Aug. 13.

The cry is again being heard that Rawlings is winding the ball tighter than ever.

Or as Chicago Cub first baseman Mark Grace suggests, they have dimples in them.

“I think the balls are Maxflis,” Grace said, insisting that the compression is so high that they should be hit off a golf tee. Of course, it’s almost as if they are.

“I’m an old-school guy,” Grace said. “I liked it when home runs were special. Now it’s becoming almost easy. You know that when I have three already and when you’ve got 150-pound [middle infielders] hitting opposite-field homers.”

It has become a familiar theme with familiar explanations.

The balls are livelier. The hitters are stronger. The parks are smaller. The pitching is poorer. The umpires refuse to call the high strike.

It is even being suggested that the silver dye used to mark the balls with a 2000 has made them more slippery, more difficult for pitchers to grasp. It also is being suggested that the consolidation of American and National League umpires has created even more disparities in the strike zone.

One thing is certain: Only Detroit’s Comerica Park, of the three new parks this year, favors pitchers. Pac Bell and Enron Field in Houston maintain the bandbox architecture of the stadium renaissance.

“Houston is a joke right now,” Cub Manager Don Baylor said. “Balls are bouncing off the facade of the upper deck. They want to make these parks smaller, but with the pitching the way it is, it’s scary for the parks to be smaller.”

There were eight home runs hit in a game between the Astros and St. Louis Cardinals at Enron on Monday. There had never been eight in a game at the Astrodome.

A weekend of fireworks began Friday when the Tigers and Baltimore Orioles hit nine in a game at Camden Yards.

The Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays then hit seven in a Saturday game at the Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.

On Sunday, the Minnesota Twins, with their triple-A lineup, hit six at Kansas City for the first time since 1993, and both the Twins and Royals slugged three consecutive homers in that game, a first.

Tiger President John McHale, who may be ostracized from owners’ meetings for designing a spacious park, said the aim at Comerica was to “have a different set of outfield dimensions than are typically found in the more offensive-oriented American League parks. . . . We thought it might be interesting to design a park that would allow a pitcher--if he threw it in the appropriate place and could induce the batter to hit it--to be reasonably sure of a harmless fly.”

The Tigers may be able to attract free-agent pitchers now but they also might have a difficult time re-signing Juan Gonzalez.

In San Diego on Thursday, Arizona Diamondback Manager Buck Showalter said it is more difficult in the current era to build a team for a pitcher’s park than a hitter’s park, and management obviously believes the offensive game attracts fans. Showalter has not seen Comerica, but he said, “I would like to see one new park conducive to pitching. Nothing wears a team down more than knowing it has to score seven or eight runs every night to win.”

Of the home run onslaught, however, Showalter said, “Everybody is so quick to look for reasons that it’s a discredit to the hitters and overlooks the fact that every team now has baseball-oriented strength coaches and that the art of teaching hitting is better than ever. That begs the question, why isn’t the pitching better? But the two things you can’t teach are foot speed and arm speed.”

Nor are there enough pitchers in an expansion era to provide every team with 10 or 11 quality arms. In addition, all of the legislation--such as lowering the mound and introducing the designated hitter--has been designed to promote offense.

Showalter said the one change he would favor is “elimination of armor in the batter’s box. The poor pitcher can’t even wear sweatbands, but the hitter is up there with elbow pads, knee pads and shoulder pads. Mo Vaughn and Jose Canseco have their elbows halfway across the plate. They don’t care if the pitcher throws inside because they have so much padding on.”

Cleveland Indian pitcher Dave Burba, after giving up a pair of tape-measure homers to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ Greg Vaughn last weekend, bemoaned that “the way guys are hitting home runs now is sickening. Sometimes you throw a decent pitch, and the guy not only hits it, he hits it 450 feet. They’re monsters up there. They hit 57 homers [in one day]. Give me a break. You can’t tell me that’s all bad pitching.”

The scary part, to use Baylor’s characterization, is that this record binge has come during baseball’s coldest month. What happens when the weather and hitters warm up?

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Baylor said, “but normally in April hitters get off to slow starts.

“I mean, it’s already got a pitching coach [Rick Williams] fired in Tampa.”

More may follow, especially if Kevin Elster keeps hitting three home runs a game.