Pitching Warlocks and All-Star Shutouts
On finding joy, even without monster hits or witty commentary.
All right, it’s time for Clue No. 3 in our “Which batter is on the cover of FIFTY SEASONS: Stories of the Baseball Years That Echo” contest — the cover reveal is July 23! — and I will tell you that we have received almost a thousand guesses so far, and no one has gotten it.
But that’s not surprising at all. I’ve been very skimpy on the clues:
Clue No. 1: You’re not just going to guess this player.
Clue No. 2: This player spent his entire career with one team.
Well, hey, I didn’t want anyone to get it too quickly — there’s almost no way to name the players based on those clues. The answers that have come in have been amazing — you’re nailing virtually every single chapter in the book. But here’s the thing: The batter on the cover is not there because he had a legendary season. The batter is on the cover because the photo evokes so many of the feelings that I want this book to bring to mind.
So, it’s not Yaz. It’s not Teddy ballgame. It’s not Stan or Mays or Aaron or Jackie.
So that’s one clue.
But here’s the bigger clue — and this might reduce the possibilities enough that you might get it.
This player is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Remember: One guess per clue. You can send in your guess here.
Let’s start with the “In my day” portion of today’s essay: The first All-Star Game I remember watching happened in 1976, fifty years ago, when I was 9 years old. I remember it mainly because the American League's starting pitcher was Mark Fidrych.
There’s obviously a lot of Mark Fidrych in FIFTY SEASONS.
I don’t know if kids feel the way we felt in the mid-1970s, but I remember that when I was 9, superheroes would just wander into my life. Evel Knievel was one of those superheroes. The Six Million Dollar Man was another. Ken Stabler. Kareem. Electra Woman (and DynaGirl!).
And there was no bigger superhero than Mark Fidrych, the Bird, who talked to baseballs and manicured mounds and hung out with Big Bird and got people out.
So I remember being so excited to see him pitch in the All-Star Game.
Here, for posterity, are the American League pitchers in that All-Star Game.
Fidrych — two innings, two runs, key hit was a triple by Steve Garvey.
Catfish — two innings, two runs, key hit was a home run by George Foster.
Tiant — two innings, no runs, got out of a jam after Pete Rose’s leadoff triple in the fifth.
Tanana — two innings, three runs, key hit was a home run by César Cedeño.
That’s it. That’s all the pitchers. If you are a baseball fan of a certain age, you will not only be able to easily come up with their full names, but you will probably have a vivid memory of how they looked on the mound. One is in the Hall of Fame, one should be, one’s very close, and the fourth is a legend.
I will now list off the American League pitchers in the 2026 All-Star Game.
Cease — One inning, no hits, three Ks.
Messick — One inning, no hits, 1 K
Wacha — One inning, no hits, 2 Ks
Ryan — One inning, one hit, 2 Ks
Martinez — One inning, no hits, 1 K
Smith — One inning, no hits, 2 Ks
Rasmussen — Two-thirds, no hits, 1 K
Latz — One-third, no hits, 1 K
Varland — One inning, one hit, 1 K
Chapman — Two-thirds, no hits, 1 K
Baker — One-third, no hits, no Ks
Now, you can test yourself as a baseball fan by trying to come up with the first name for every pitcher here without looking — I’m sure some of you can do it. I’m pretty sure I could not have. Combined, these eleven pitchers threw nine shutout innings, allowed three hits (all singles) and struck out fifteen — this against the National League’s best (or at least the best who were healthy and willing to play).
We’ve watched for years now as these pitching warlocks — particularly the one-inning relievers — have taken over baseball, how they have lowered batting averages to historic lows with their exploding sliders and blurring fastballs and wiffleball sweepers and Bugs Bunny changeups and paralyzing curveballs. But to see the bland-named warlocks enter the game, one after another, Smith and Latz and Varland and, on the other side, Griffin and O’Brien and Miller, all of them throwing 100-mph heat and unhittable stuff, is to understand that hitters these days are basically helpless. Maybe these pitchers will walk a batter or two. Or maybe the hitter can run into a ball, the way Miguel Vargas did against Justin Wrobleski. But that’s pretty much the only hope against these pitching monsters.
The other hope used to be that you could wait out a pitcher.
But you can’t wait out a pitcher anymore. There have only been 282 plate appearances all year where a batter faced a starter for the fourth time in a game. That’s all the teams combined — that’s .02% of all plate appearances this year. Unsurprisingly, batters are hitting great in those situations — .284/.349/.483 — which is why teams will almost never allow it to happen. Why would you let your starter face a batter for the fourth time, no matter how well he’s pitching, when you have a Latz or Smith who can basically apply Wite-Out to any batter at any time?
Yes, we know all this, we have talked about all this, but it really stood out in this All-Star Game. The American League threw the first All-Star shutout in thirteen years, but in that 2013 game, there was at least a CHANCE the National League would score. Carlson Beltran made it to third in that game. Paul Goldschmidt doubled in the last inning. There was no chance the National League would score on Tuesday. There was always another Terminator waiting in the bullpen.
Does this make for a better or worse game? I think it’s the wrong question: I’ve always said that baseball is the best it ever was or ever will be when you are 10 years old, and so, yes, I’m partial to my own time, to Mark Fidrych’s time, to the All-Star Game featuring four starting pitchers and batters hitting .300, but so what? If you are 10 years old now, this is the greatest baseball imaginable. The strikeouts are violent and R-rated. The batters who break through are miracle workers. The home runs are titanic. As Buck O’Neil always said: “Baseball is still baseball.”
In the top of the eighth inning of the All-Star Game, the Fox crew had an in-game conversation with a mic’d-up Pete Crow-Armstrong, and the conversation was basically about how much PCA likes the Chicago Bears and also how much fun he’s had watching the World Cup. This was while PCA stood in the outfield DURING THE BLEEPING BASEBALL ALL-STAR GAME.
I don’t know that there’s a better example of how baseball gets broadcast.
I don’t want to go on another Fox baseball rant because, you know, what’s the point? There must be enough people out there who enjoy John Smoltz’s broadcasting style that FOX keeps bringing him back. And there must be people out there who find insight in the mic’d up conversations, even though they sound like this to me:
“Bobby, it looks like so much fun out there! Tell us, are you having as much fun as you make it look?”
“Kyle, is this All-Star Game as much fun as it seems?”
“Justin, you’ve had such a great career. I guess the obvious question is, what has been the most fun part?”
And, of course:
“PCA, tell us how much fun other sports are because we’re tired of this game.”
Hey, maybe they only sound that way to me.
So there’s no reason to go down this road again. But there is a point I want to make: The Fox coverage of the World Cup has been awesome. I actually didn’t think the coverage of the U.S. Team was all that great — maybe this is an American problem — but the rest of it has been emotional and hilarious and sweet and wonderful. I’ve already talked about how incredible the Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic studio crew is (and no, it isn’t lost on me that none of them are American), but the game announcers, too, more or less across the board, have been wonderful.
And I have been wondering: Why have I enjoyed Fox’s soccer coverage SO MUCH when I find Fox’s baseball coverage to be mute-button worthy?
I’ve come up with two possibilities:
The first possibility is that I just know too much about baseball. I clearly don’t know that much about soccer, so maybe the insights that soccer announcers bring ring true for me in a way that saying “Bobby Witt Jr. has all the tools” or “James Wood is a PLAYER,” does not.
But I honestly don’t think this is true because my favorite baseball announcers — Vin and Ueck and Jason and Kuip and Krukow and Bob and Ernie and Marty and so many others — weren’t my favorites because they gave me deep insights into the game.
They were and are my favorites because they capture what makes baseball wonderful.
They express their love for baseball because they really do love baseball.
‘And that’s the second possibility: The Fox soccer announcers love the sport. They LOVE it. They love talking about it, love breaking it down, love pointing out which players are having great days, love pointing out which players are struggling, love watching a brilliant play develop, love the chaos that will inevitably come when a penalty is or isn’t called, or a player’s toe is or is not offside. They even love cracking down on their favorite team when it isn’t performing.
They love this game! It’s clear in every single word they say.
That’s how much I love baseball. I love all the big things, and I love all the little things too. I love that managers still take the baseball away from pitchers. I love that pitchers have to decide what pitch to throw next in, like, five seconds.
I love that St. Louis’ Iván Herrera was a late addition to the All-Star team largely because he has been hit by TWENTY-FOUR pitches this year. I doubt he can break Ron Hunt’s modern record of 50 HBPs in 1971, but we dare to dream, and he definitely has a shot at Don Baylor’s 35 HBPs in 1986.
I mean, the Fox announcers DIDN’T EVEN MENTION IT.
I love that no shortstop goes to his right better than Bobby Witt Jr. — you can’t hit a ball through that hole between third and short against him.
I love that exactly eighty years before the All-Star Game, Cleveland and Boston played a game for the ages at Fenway Park — Lou Boudreau hit four doubles and a homer and Boston won anyway because Ted Williams hit three home runs.
I love that when you look through baseball history, you will ALWAYS find something like that.
Is it too much to ask for the people who bring us baseball to love it as much as we do?