Laurila: John Thorn and a historical perspective on baseball’s new changes
From SABR member David Laurila at FanGraphs on February 22, 2015, with SABR member John Thorn:
In the opinion of some, baseball is broken. Not irreparably, but it’s become borderline boring and badly in need of an infusion of offense. Pace is a problem. Games last beyond the bedtimes of millions of young fans, many of whom have short attention spans.
There are myriad issues, and they can’t be ignored simply because certain indicators suggest the sport is thriving. What, if anything, to do about them? In the opinion of John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, there are no obvious answers.
“It’s conflated,” Thorn told me a few days ago. “It’s tangled. People have a vague unease that things aren’t right — not the way the ought to be – and somebody ought to do something. The problem is, there’s no magic bullet.”
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/sunday-notes-thorn-on-game-changes-salaries-redux-moya-on-mashing-more/
Originally published: February 23, 2015. Last Updated: February 23, 2015.