Baseball Players Are Better Athletes Than Ever Before. But Modern Day Strategy Is Killing the Game.

Two baseball games caught my attention this week.

An old game from my 1982 youth between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies where Larry McWilliams carried a no-hitter in to the seventh inning and Wednesday’s 8–1 Tampa Bay victory against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Wednesday’s game was note because Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did what all managers do now, they employed the shift.

This time the hitter was 6–1, 250-pound Rays first baseman Ji-Man Choi, who, to the delight of my purist heart bunted for a hit to beat the shift with two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the first.

Hill’s profanity laden tirade was audible throughout the ballpark, but in a way it was refreshing.

Hill hadn’t allowed this hit. Modern day strategy had. And while it didn’t come back to haunt him as Choi was left on base, finally two players, both Choi and Hill, were revealing the obvious flaws in this style of defensive positioning.

“The shift,” where at minimum the shortstop plays either at or to the first base side of second base, thus leaving the left side of the…