The "Comments" section of my last column has raised, and partly clarified, some of the legal issues I was writing about: my assumption is that for any legal case to be pursued in actuality, someone legitimately claiming to have been harmed by MLB’s banning of very short people needs to file a lawsuit, and that would probably require some team, presumably one with a sabermetric interest in hiring a very short person for the purposes and functions I described previously, to have offered him a MLB contract. If MLB quashes that contract, forbids the team to hire such a person, under the "best interests of baseball" clause, then MLB would have a grievant who could, I’m guessing, file suit and test the legitimacy of this grievance.
Shortly after writing that last column, I remembered that I AM actually acquainted with perhaps the most prominent lawyer in the country who deals with sports issues (we went all through high school and college together), with whom I’ve now set up a tentative meeting, both to catch up on old times and for me to ask a pointed question or two, just for my general understanding. (He doesn’t want to be quoted or identified by name, so you’ll have to settle for my enlightenment, if any, which I will share with you.) Mainly, I want to learn what my lawyer friend thinks is preventing my scenario from happening, and whether it could ever actually occur.
But while we wait for my enlightenment, a long-sought goal many have died waiting for, a few other matters, before we move on to other subjects: let’s start by looking at the principle involved here, and not so much staring at the midgets. If someone has a genuine ability to succeed at something, anything, none of us wants that person to be kept from succeeding by the personal whims of another, or by badly written laws, or well-written laws being misapplied, or by hidebound tradition, right? (I have a very fine set of traditions in my trophy case, bound in lovely zebra-hide, incidentally.) All else equal, we want people to have an equal shot at success, and to let their merits decide how successful they’ll be. So instead of staring at midgets, who seem undeserving to some of succeeding at MLB, let us direct our gaze upwards and contemplate a giant.
No, not Willie Mays nor Barry Bonds, but an actual giant, a human who is as tall as Eddie Gaedel is short, but one with freakish athletic ability that makes Mays’ and Bonds’ abilities seem merely adequate. Let’s put this man’s dimensions at, oh, say, 9’ 6" and a trim 320 pounds. And let’s say, for the sake of wordplay, that this fellow walks into the San Francisco Giants’ office and asks for a tryout.
When the Giants learn that this giant is supremely coordinated, hitting with unprecedented power to all fields, a wonderful fielder, a fast and cunning baserunner, they naturally sign him to a MLB contract. He has a tremendous strike-zone, but he also has a hidden ability inherent to his size: although utilizing the largest and longest bat allowed by MLB regulations, he is able by dint of his huge body to swish the huge and heavy club through the air more easily than you or I could swing a sawn-in-half broomstick, giving him the ability to hit any ball thrown to any part of his enormous strike-zone effortlessly. Standing at the furthest edge of the back corner of the batter’s box, he can easily reach every pitch thrown to him and squarely knock a 400-foot line-drive time after time. He won’t walk that often, but he will have a slugging percentage way over 1.000.
One problem, though: the Commissioner has voided his contract.
Why? "The best interests of baseball," of course. The commissioner in all his wisdom has decided that such a player would throw the balance in the game all out of whack. Whichever team has this player would have such a tremendous advantage that fans would know in April which team will hoist the World Series trophy in October, he will quickly rewrite all the record books, and most rooting interest in the game will disappear until he decides to retire. So to prevent a mockery from being made of the game of baseball, his contract must be voided.
What’s that you say? You WANT to see this fellow play MLB? You think he has every right to play? You believe he isn’t breaking any rules of baseball?
Well, that’s the argument for allowing a player 3’7" to play, only writ large.
Anyway, some folks in the "Comments" section were also putting forth the objection that of course a major league pitcher can get the ball to go into any part of the strike zone he pleases any time he likes, and that it’s unrealistic to suggest that a pitcher can’t simply will himself to throw a 70-MPH strike to a hitter, such as Eddie Gaedel, incapable of hitting a thrown baseball more than a dozen feet. I think it was Bob Gregory who wrote that the only reason Bob Cain walked Gaedel at all was that Cain was so astonished at the sight of the tiny batter he simply had a fit of laughter on the mound, which made him lose his ability to control where his pitches went.
That’s possible, and I’m sure that reducing the complex task of pitching at the major league level from many aims (throwing 90+ MPH, mixing in breaking pitches, trying to hit certain spots in the strike zone) to just one (getting the damned pitch over the plate) would improve pitchers’ control considerably, although the much reduced size of the strike zone would at the same time ratchet up the difficulty of that task. And of course we can’t know exactly what will happen until it does happen, which should be in approximately never.
But we do have some examples every day suggesting that MLB pitchers are often tasked with getting the ball over the plate, plain and simple, and they fail at this simple task surprisingly often. I refer to situations where a pitcher, often a fresh relief pitcher, comes into the game with a huge lead. He is instructed in that situation simply to throw strikes. Leading by ten or a dozen runs, his team will gladly risk an extra-base hit in exchange for an out—the one outcome they do not want is a base on balls. By putting the ball in play, the team knows that they will get the few outs they need, if only by accident, before the opposition gets the many runs they need. You just can’t give them any free baserunners.
And, as you know well, the pitcher often cannot get the ball over the plate. After a four-pitch walk or two, the opposing batters are virtually standing there with the bat on their shoulders, waiting patiently to see if the pitcher can find the strike zone, the manager is frowning in the dugout, steam coming out of his ears, the fans are staring at each other, cursing the pitcher’s heritage and core beliefs, the pitcher knows full well that all he needs to do is throw a risk-free strike—and he throws another ball!
The above scenario may be rare, but a more modified version is very common: a pitcher with a big lead, trying to throw strikes, gets behind on batters and throws many, many more pitches than he wants to throw. Why? I would suggest that throwing strikes is not simply a matter of wanting to throw strikes, or even of being able to throw strikes. It’s hard to do, even for a major-league pitcher.
The current MLB strike zone is approximately two feet in height, give or take. With an Eddie Gaedel at the plate, those 24 inches or so would be reduced to maybe 10 inches, fewer if he is allowed to take an exaggerated crouch. (Who can say what his "natural" stance would be?—but let’s stick with 10 inches.) Do you realize how fiendishly difficult it is, even for a MLB pitcher, to hit a spot that small three times in seven? Again, under actual game conditions, most hits owe part of their success to the pitchers’ inability to throw pitches to the part of the strike zone they are trying to throw to. How often do you see a catcher setting up low and inside and then lunging when the pitch comes in high and outside? More often, a catcher will set up low and inside and the pitch will come in down the middle of the plate, precisely where the pitcher does not want it to go.
MLB pitchers are for the most part very precise with their location, but they are not Gods, and we can all imagine a strike zone that is just too tiny to pitch to. I think the Eddie Gaedels of this world present God-like challenges to pitchers’ precision. And unlike my imaginary giant batting for the Giants, they actually do exist in this world.