Struck Them Out

 

Reggie Jackson knew how to strike out. A lot.

I got home a short time ago from calling Brunswick's home baseball game against Citius Prep, an academy with what they describe as "one of the top travel baseball programs in the country."

They were pretty good, making the most of their opportunities en route to a 6-2 victory over the Bruins.

Cirius Prep's pitchers struck out a lot of Bruins.

Too many for my taste but that has more to do with my disdain for strikeouts than it does the Bruins themselves. Trust me, I'm not sitting here ripping high school kids.

But the strikeout. Oh, how I hated the strikeout as a player.

I literally refused to strike out looking. If you were going to get me, it was going to be on some godawful swing and a miss.

Because I had plenty of godawful swings and misses that still haunt me.

Sure, you love the strikeout -- the big K on the scorecard -- when your team struck the other one out. But when it's your hitters doing the striking out? It's infuriating to me.

I realize we've almost reached some kind of strange acceptance with the strikeout in modern baseball but it's still a struggle for me.

My eyes generally do a tour of my eyelids every time I see Aaron Judge rack up a K.

I'm reminded of the Kevin Costner line about strikeouts to Tim Robbins in Bull Durham.

"Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls – it's more democratic.”

According to Baseball Reference, the top 35 single-season strikeout leaders are all from the 21st century. The number skew differently for careers as Reggie Jackson is still the king of K's with 2,597. Reggie last played in 1987. Numbers two through nine on that list are more contemporary, before getting to the great Willie Stargell in 10th place. "Pops" retired in 1982.

Indeed, while wonderful to some, strikeouts drive up pitch counts in modern baseball. Thus more strikeouts (and walks) means more pitches means less complete games. I mean, do I need to tell you how rare complete games are now?

Pitch counts, sadly, rule the day.

Last year, Sandy Alcantra pitched six complete games for the Miami Marlins. In 1975, Catfish Hunter threw 30 for the Yankees. 

Who cares, right?

Oh, trust me, I can see you glazing toward sleeping as you read this one. I get it.

Maybe I just struck out too many times -- in baseball and life. But the strikeout has never sat well with me.

To reiterate, this has nothing to do with the K's I kept writing on my scorecard today. Each one was treated with its own level of gusto as necessary. 

But each one also screamed "blog post" to me as I watched them rack up.

I'm just always going to be of the belief that the ball should be put in play.

I also can't stress enough that a called third strike makes me craziest because I'd rather at least go down swinging.

Anyway, I'm babbling about a bunch of nothing.

I suppose this post can be considered a strikeout.

I'll write another K in the book.