bobbyjohn wrote:
Average life of a Major League Baseball = 7 pitches. Wow! Nowadays, if a baseball even hits the dirt during a pitch, they discard it. I prefer the days of old (like 1950s) when a baseball would stay in use almost forever, unless, of course, it was a home-run or a foul into the stands.
They don’t throw the ball away every time it is bounced in the dirt by the pitcher. Those balls are rubbed clean in the dugout by the ball boy and put back in the rotation. Pitchers gain an advantage when there is dirt on the ball by the weight of the ball not being even. So, they rub it off not discard the ball. Yeah lets go back to the “old days” when a scuffed or dirty ball couldn’t be seen by the batter.