2020 and the baseball season from hell

I've been a die-hard baseball fan since I saw my first Pittsburgh Pirates game in 1948.

I've seen baseball played at its best and at its worst, but in over 70 years of watching games, nothing has shaken my faith in our national pastime like the 2020 season.

I realize it was remarkable that, with a raging pandemic, there was a season at all, but for a baseball purist like me, it was difficult to accept a 60-game season with so many head-spinning changes and adjustments, beginning with games played in empty ballparks in front of cardboard cutout fans, while fan noise was eerily pumped into the ballpark.

Despite serious outbreaks of COVID-19 among teams, especially the St. Louis Cardinals, baseball was able to survive and complete an abbreviated season, but its decision to speed up games to reach that goal was more distracting and disturbing than entertaining.

There were all those seven-inning double headers that were reminiscent of semi-pro and softball leagues, and the bizarre change in extra-inning games where teams began each at bat with a runner at second base and in scoring position.

Baseball also tried to speed things up by instituting a rule that a relief pitcher had to face three batters at a minimum rather than one in the hope that there would be less managerial visits to the mound. The only thing that wasn't reduced, of course, was the number of commercials between innings.

To make the abbreviated 2020 season more entertaining, baseball decided to use the designated hitter in both leagues.

The decision led to an increase in home runs, but it also led to an increase in strikeouts by batters trying to hit home runs. The result was actually the reduction of baseball, celebrated in the past for its strategic play, into more of a home run derby.

To make the game not just entertaining but more meaningful for fans, baseball decided to expand its post-season by increasing the number of wild card teams in the playoffs from two to five in each league.

The unfortunate outcome of the decision was that, for the first time in baseball history, teams with losing records made the playoffs, including the Houston Astros, a team that cheated its way to a World Series championship in 2017.

Another unfortunate and far more serious outcome of the past season was that, with a disrupted spring training and little time for pitchers to get their arms in shape, so many suffered serious injuries in 2020. There is no more threatening injury to a pitcher than an injured throwing arm, especially if it leads to surgery. A pitcher who undergoes arm surgery will likely miss at least an entire season and may never recover his arm strength again.

Baseball, of course, is no stranger to major changes, even though its appeal and value as the national pastime is rooted in tradition. It shortened one of its seasons in response to the Spanish flu and World War I and survived World War II with military rejects, including an outfielder with one arm.

In the aftermath of a gambling scandal, it made the game more attractive for fans by introducing a livelier ball and eliminating the doctoring of baseballs, including the notorious spitball.

During the Great Depression, it kept up fans' interest in the game by adding a mid-season All-Star game. When the Cardinals' Bob Gibson dominated hitters in the 1968 season, baseball reduced the height of the pitcher mound and narrowed the strike zone to help hitters.

Before the pandemic, my biggest adjustment as a fan came in the 1950s when baseball franchises, beginning with the Boston Braves, started moving to different cities.

A decade later, baseball began an expansion that eventually increased baseball from 16 to the current 30 franchises. When I was growing up, I knew every player on every team, but today I have to admit that keeping track of so many major league players is beyond me.

My wife Anita thinks I've become a grumpy old man, which isn't surprising since I was a grumpy young man. But, grumpy or not, I've survived this season from hell, and like I've done for over 70 years, I'll wait for next year and hope baseball will return to its traditional roots.

And I'll also hope that our country, after struggling through a horrible and tragic pandemic, will also be returning to normal.

Reading Baseball is a series of stories and commentaries by Richard "Pete" Peterson, author of "Growing Up With Clemente" and the editor of The St Louis Baseball Reader. His essays appear regularly in the Times and on WSIU 91.9 FM.