Pete Rose Accuses MLB of Juicing Balls: 'I'm Not Real Happy When I Watch Baseball'
Once upon a time, in 1920, Major League Baseball put an end to the “dead ball era” by introducing a baseball that was much livelier, traveled further, and transferred less of its energy to the bat when hit.
The net result was baseball’s first true golden age, when the likes of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig mashed homer after homer over the fences at Yankee Stadium and guys like Rogers Hornsby and Tris Speaker were there to make sure that not all the fun was had in New York.
Nearly 100 years later, there are those who believe that baseball is doing the same thing, and not all of them are happy about it.
Pete Rose, the all-time hit leader in the major leagues, doesn’t like the home run-heavy game that MLB has become.
“I’m going to argue with baseball until the day I die,” Rose told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale while signing baseballs at a memorabilia store in Cooperstown, New York. “That baseball is juiced. I don’t care what anybody says. They’ll say it’s not, which they have to. I saw a ball bounce behind the dugout the other day in Anaheim and it bounced into the second deck. Now, there’s something going on there.
“I saw Bryce Harper break his bat in half, and hit a 420-foot home run in New York,” he added. “That just doesn’t happen. I know the ballparks are small. It just seems to me that everybody who plays baseball today is a potential home-run hitter.
“You get tired of watching the highlights on MLB and ESPN. Every hit is a home run.”
Rose is also not a fan of every plate appearance seemingly being a walk, a strikeout, or a home run, with the seven guys on defense who aren’t the pitcher and the catcher free to pick dandelions in the outfield like bored Little League kids.
“I’m not real happy when I watch baseball,’’ Rose said. “Fundamentally the way it’s played. It seems like back in the 70s and 80s we worked on fundamentals. We spent a little more time in the minor leagues than they do today because there are 30 teams, and they’re going to hurry them to the big leagues.’’
Rose also engaged in that bugbear of the modern baseball fan, assertion without statistical backup.
“Too many guys just sit around waiting for that two-run, three-run home runs,” Rose said. “The teams that put the ball in play go to the World Series. Houston won the World Series, they put the ball in play a lot. Boston puts the ball in play a lot, that’s why I like Boston right now better than the Yankees. They’ve got potential batting champions and they got potential home run champions. The Yankees have potential home runs champions.”
And while yes, Houston did put the ball in play a lot, they also led the league in doubles (346), prioritized getting on base (a league-best .346 OBP while finishing best in the league at not striking out), and were second only to the Yankees in home runs (238 vs. the Yankees’ 241.)
The Astros played the very sort of modern hit-it-far baseball that Rose decries, and that’s why they won the chip.
Rose also complained that ballparks are too small.
“The number of ballparks is a joke to pitch in,” Rose said. “It’s not really fair to be honest with you. You think of Camden Yards [Baltimore] … Cincinnati. Houston is a joke. They’re world champions, but it’s a joke to pitch there. … Colorado, Arizona.”
Rose has a point there; just about every park in baseball has some kind of short porch either in left or right field where pull hitters can drop home runs that would’ve been fly ball outs in Rose’s old Cincinnati stomping grounds at Riverfront Stadium.
But back in those days, baseball teams commonly shared stadiums with football teams, leading to ugly sight lines and cavernous foul territories that shortened at-bats by making a lot more foul pop-ups playable.
Today’s parks are built deliberately to put the bulk of outcomes in fair territory, which naturally increases scoring.
Rose also complained about competitive balance.
“There are a lot of good players out there,” Rose said. “I don’t think there are a lot of really good teams. Let’s be honest. There are more bad teams than good teams.”
He then took a flying leap of logic off a cliff.
“You know what I think baseball ought to look into that might help, splitting the season in half, like they do in the minor leagues,” Rose suggested. “Think of how many teams have no chance of winning at the All-Star break. Now, if it’s a clean slate, and you add a couple of players.
“Besides not only are teams 30, 40 games out of first place, what’s your attendance going to be the second half?”
Ask that question to every team in the old days when there were 16 teams in the league and two in the playoffs, or as late as 1993 when there were 28 teams and just four spots available, with no wild cards.
The 1954 Yankees won 103 games but were effectively out of playoff contention when it became clear that the Indians (who went 111-43 that year) were having a special year.
That was the same season where the Red Sox, who finished fourth of eight teams, ended the year 42 games out of first, and the fourth-place team in the National League, the Phillies, finished 22 games back of the eventual world champion Giants.
Maybe baseball should try having more playoff teams, like other sports. In the NBA, playoff races routinely come down to the last day of the season, sometimes with win-or-go-home games like the Minnesota Timberwolves’ win over the Denver Nuggets this past April.
Finally, out of arguments, the 77-year-old Rose took the Charles Barkley door out of the argument, professing his ignorance of sabermetrics.
“I don’t understand all of these analytics and all of the talk about dropping the hands and hitting the ball up in the air, because these ballparks today, you hit the ball hard, it’s going to go out of the ballpark.”
Rose then went back to sitting behind a table, signing autographs for money, expressing mock-contrition at having been caught betting on baseball, and hoping his Hall of Fame induction, if it ever comes, won’t come posthumously.
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