Nov

29

Want to know the REAL reason the St Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series? Wasn’t it odd how much trouble the Tigers had hitting and against a bullpen that wasn’t the greatest in baseball this season either? Wasn’t it odd how the World Series games seem to score a lot lower than most regular season games AND the playoffs? What could account for this?

It was the baseball.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. You’ve heard all the stories of how the modern baseball was “juiced” to help hitting. I’ve even seen internet reports of people doing performance test of old baseballs to new baseballs.

I don’t recall when or where but over the years I read of the suggestion that the latest “juicing” of the baseball was no actual change to how the baseball was made but what was put ON the baseball. It suggested that the ball wasn’t made to go further but that by putting a big fat blue logo on the baseball the batters could see the spin of the ball better. That sounds good in theory but where is the proof? Practice. Apparently, coaches commonly put black dots on baseballs using permanent ink pens to help train batters to see the spin of the ball (according to this report I read). If that is true then there is no question in my mind that a big fat blue logo on the ball could help major league players spot the spin of the ball better.

So, I’m laying in bed tonight thinking about the Cardinals and it hits me “Hey…I bet they changed the baseball logo for the World Series this year.” One thought lead to another (as it often does with me) and I decided while laying in bed that the baseball was probably changed to have a less obvious logo. Why? Well, because of the decrease performance of the Tiger’s batting and increase performance of the Cardinals pitching.

You may well ask “Wouldn’t the logo change affect both teams?” and although the answer is yes, it would affect the Tigers MORE than the Cardinals. Why? Spotting spin is more important to home run hitters than base hitters. The Tigers rely on big hitting more (i.e. more home run hitting). The Cardinals, although they have some big hitters of their own, rely on more base hitting. This is all supported by the fact that the Cardinal’s BIGGEST home run hitter, really didn’t have that great of a performance. In fact, he performed a lot like the Tiger’s hitting. This would also explain the reason for the lower scoring games compared to the playoffs.

Over the years as I have tried to explain to other fans the impact that adding the big fat dark logo on the baseball had on the sport. They seem to pretty easily dismiss it. However, I am CONVINCED that it DOES have a major impact on the game. I am even more convinced now since I was just laying in bed and though “I bet the baseball for the world series had a more subdued logo on it because of the hitting.” Sure enough, it did.

2006 MLBaseball          2006 WSBaseball

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