November 21, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. 
Rich Barbieri
John Barten Brian Borawski Craig Brown Evan Brunell David Gassko Jonathan Hale Brandon Isleib Chris Jaffe Max Marchi Bruce Markusen Harry Pavlidis Jeff Sackmann Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! Dan Turkenkopf Colin Wyers Geoff Young John Brattain And here's the full roster.
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Business of Baseball Reportby Brian BorawskiFebruary 21, 2007 Cubs to Add Advertisements to Outfield WallsFor the first time ever, historic Wrigley Field will sport advertisements out in the ivy. Under Armour has paid to place ads on the doors in right and left fields; Alfonso Soriano has also agreed to wear Under Armour’s logo on his wrist bands this season. While I’m not a Cubs fan, I don’t really see this as that big of a deal, and I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner with the Cubs' corporate ownership. I saw Tiger Stadium slowly put up ads on their outfield walls over time and now Comerica Park has ads all over the place. I don’t see it as taking anything away from my experience at the ballpark, and if the team puts some of that sponsorship money back into the team, then it’s win/win. MLB Approves Rule ChangesFor the first time since 1996, there are some rule changes in baseball. There’s an automatic 10-game suspension for scuffing or defacing a ball (but only if you’re caught). A big deal was made of this when an unusual substance was seen on Kenny Rogers' hand in the World Series. There’s also a new rule regarding tie games. If the game is official and it’s tied and called because of weather, the game will now be resumed on the day that the two teams play in that particular stadium again (think doubleheader light). Also, a fielder can no longer go into the dugout to catch a fly ball, but he can reach into it. Finally, new rules give exceptions to when a runner can leave the retaining line down the first base line, and the pitcher now has 12 seconds to pitch the ball when no runners are on base. Suites on the DeclineIt seemed like the big deal when a new stadium went up was the number of suites that the new ballpark contained. Now teams are getting rid of some of their suites in exchange for things like “super suites” or they're just eliminating them all together. Other teams are giving out perks like food allowances or upgrading their current suites to make them more marketable. Most suites are purchased by corporations and it looks most companies aren’t willing to cough up the cost of purchasing a suite these days. New Pitching Machine Helps Hitters During OffseasonWhen I think of batting cages, I think of inaccurate machines that at times do more harm than good. Now, teams are coughing up big bucks for state-of-the-art pitching machines to help their players fine tune their swings at any time of the year. This interesting story discusses a machine that the Rockies are holding out on buying. It costs $45,000 and it’s produced by a company called HitStreak. It can throw anything from a 96-mile-per-hour fastball to an 84-mile-per-hour slider and hit the plate every time. It also provides a DVD quality image on a screen, and the ball shoots through a hole in the screen with the image of the pitcher going through his motion. The machine can hit 100 mph and several teams have had them installed. Jason Giambi and Trot Nixon even purchased the machine so they can use them during the offseason. More on Braves SaleIt looks like the sale of the Braves from Time Warner to Liberty Media was more complicated than the initial reports indicated because CBS is also part of a deal. It’s no big surprise that the deal took so long to consummate considering there were three big corporations to deal with and not just two. You can check out Maury Brown's coverage at Biz of Baseball. Brian Borawski is a member of SABR's Business of Baseball Committee and writes about the Detroit Tigers at his own website, TigerBlog. He welcomes comments, questions and suggestions via e-mail. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and consistency of style. Please include your whole name and location to be considered. If you have a comment about this specific article, please email the writer. Next Article: Baseball Injury Report>> <<Previous Article: Meet the Bench Players |
