Go Deep or Go Home: It's All Power, All The Time

In non-Covid times— remember them?— early April was the sports fan’s dream. The Masters. NHL/ NBA playoffs beginning. March Madness culminating. The curling season hurry-hurry harding. And the MLB regular season odyssey launching.

To say that spring of 2021 is tainted is an understatement. Just as our appreciation of these spring rituals has been blunted by the virus, there is another nagging issue with many of our favourite pastimes. As we wrote last October as the Dodgers polished off the World Series, subtlety seems to have been lost in baseball. (And no, we don’t mean MLB interfering in Georgia state politics.)

The NBA’s version of the long ball— the three-point shot— has completely revolutionized basketball. Golf, too, has seen a revolution as Augusta National rolls this week. The art of the thing— the craft of sport— seems to have been flattened by a relentless road grader of more and more power. Here’s what we said then.

Somewhere in heaven— or parts south— Earl Weaver is smiling. The crusty Baltimore Orioles manager’s strategy, famously known as “"pitching, defence, and the three-run homer”, landed him in Cooperstown.  

Not for Earl the bunt, the hit-and-run, the stolen base. He liked guys like Eddie Murray, Boog Powell and Frank Robinson who took the ball out of the park with a few team mates aboard.

So these delayed 2020 MLB playoffs would have tickled him. The four teams that made it to the league finals were built around stacked lineups of guys who could hit the long ball. In fact, most of modern baseball is built around working counts, departure velocity, launch angle of the home run. Plus flame throwing pitching staffs and defences to counter that power.

Not for nothing did the Dodgers win the final game against Atlanta on a home run. Or score 11 runs (on three homers) in the first inning of Game 3.  

With the expanded rosters necessitated by the virus, games are almost four-hour episodes of Waiting For Go-Deep. Frankly, it’s a bit tedious. Like waiting for only the Roman candle, not the firecracker. Befuddled fans see hitters who eschew the open side of the diamond on the shift, preferring to rely on the chance of smashing a hanging slider out of the park.

With TV and digital ratings skewed by the gravity of the virus, #BLM and the election, it’s hard to get a sense of whether the public likes a game without steals or hit-and-run. There’s little doubt that physics, physical training and video study are here to stay. But is it baseball without bunts or going the opposite way to move along a runner?

The same existential question is being asked in golf where the stratospheric drive as practiced by Bryson DeChambeau is now de rigeur. British golfer Matthew Fitzpatrick is not impressed, saying the 380-yard drives of DeChambeau and a few other Goliaths made a “mockery” of the sport at the recent U.S. Open at Winged Foot. “I drove it brilliantly, but I was miles behind. He’s in the rough and miles up and he’s hitting wedges from everywhere. 

“I just looked at Shot Tracker (Thursday), some of the places he hit it and how he’s cutting corners,” Fitzpatrick told reporters. “When he’s on, there’s no point. It doesn’t matter if I play my best; he’s going to be 50 yards in front of me off the tee. The only thing I can compete with him is putting. Which is just ridiculous.”

It’s also a threat to the portfolio of great courses around the world that are on the verge of being made obsolete when DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson et al. can simply bypass the famous bunkers, hazards and more by cutting corners or over-flying them. Say bye-bye to almost any course built before 2010.

None other than Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus have echoed this thought about distance in the past. They have joined the chorus asking for restrictions on the tech used— particularly the ball. (A movement echoed in MLB by traditionalists who see a “juiced” baseball and tech creating long-drive contests.)

Some of this criticism harkens back to the complaints about Tiger Woods who forced physical fitness on the PGA Tour in the 1990s. Competitors initially whispered that Woods was a steroid product and had extraterrestrial powers. Eventually they headed to the gym to compete with Woods.

For now, DeChambeau, admittedly a mad scientist, is unapologetic, saying he’s worked “long in to the night” to get to this stage. Having added an extra 30 pounds in the last offseason, he says he’s taking advantage of nothing illegal. “You know, I would love to have a conversation with (Fitzpatrick) about it and say, ‘Hey man, I would love to help out. Why couldn’t you do it, too?’ I don’t think it takes less skill.”

Fitzpatrick agrees that DeChambeau is not breaking any rules. His objection is artistic. “It’s not a skill to hit the ball a long way, in my opinion. I could put on 40 pounds. I could go and see a bio-mechanist and I could gain 40 yards; that’s actually a fact. I could put another two inches on my driver. I could gain that, but the skill in my opinion is to hit the ball straight. That’s the skill. He’s just taking the skill out of it, in my opinion. I’m sure lots will disagree. It’s just daft.”

But, like the three-run homer, fans seem to like it— even if it means 8000-yard courses and Earl Weaver golf.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx