Dec
02
2000, as seen from 1981
ByVia the newly-relocated ShysterBall comes a fun little article on wezen-ball. The author of this new blog found a preview of 2000 written in 1981. Among the highlights are dire predictions of $3,000,000 salaries and — gasp — $25 tickets. It’s quite amusing to see what happened and what didn’t in the intervening 19 years.
The irony. The Expo’s VP of Player Developement saw baseball expanding to TB and Denver(correct) and all existing teams will remain(hahahahahahah good bye expos)
Sacre bleu!!!
I never understood what that meant…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrebleu
The Expos were still around in 2000
touche.
You know what I meant
Very funny. Nice post.
My favorite quote was from Sadaharo Oh, those Japanese always crack me up….
“However, the world may be short of wood for baseball bats.”
He was probably watching his gigantic collection of pornography when he said that.
Based on Hideki Matsui, I can only assume that all home-run-hitting Japanese League superstars maintain their prodigious power by watching massive amounts of pornography.
I can’t imagine Matsui would ever say anything about a shortage of wood while watching his pornography collection.
Of course. How else do you think they develop such strong, quick wrists and uncanny hand-eye coordination?
DUDE!!! FAMILIA SITE!!! haha awesome!
How did you get that on there?
That’s what SHE said!!!
http://store.theonion.com/im-g.....-p-85.html
He actually was a lot closer on that prediction than most people realize.
Remember all the fuss about maple bats earlier in the year? One detail left out of most of those stories is the reason people started making maple bats. Good ash is getting hard to find and much more expensive. Maple is a lot more abundant.
” . . . you almost can envision three leagues, at least six divisions and maybe nine, tiers of playoffs, a World Series with Japan and Latin America, 7-foot pitchers, $3,000,000-a-year stars, 10 or so men to a side, metal bats, rabbit balls, monster promotional give-aways every night, network control of schedules and maybe even of players’ contracts, and $25 tickets if all the above don’t work.”
Three divisions in each league-Check
Tiers of playoffs-Check
World Baseball Classic-Check
Randy Johnson/Andrew Brackman-Check
3 mil . . . won’t get you a star
10 men? I guess with the DH-Check
Daily promotions-Check
Network control of schedules-Check
$25 ticket-Keep going . . . . keeeep going . . . .
He was mostly right except for the Metal bats and underestimating the $$.
what’s a rabbit ball?
The outside of the ball is made with rabbit skin instead of leather.
Gives it some extra pop.
Also, there will be a shortage of cows in the year 2000.
Peter Griffin: “Wait, what’s heaven like?”
Nate Griffin: “It’s fine. There’s a shortage of chairs.”
Peter Griffin: “Oh.”
Nate Griffin: “Yep.”
*10 men? I guess with the DH-Check*
They already had the DH when these predictions were made, didn’t they?
Yep, came into effect in the early 1970’s if I remember correctly.