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Brent's picture

I'm an older fellow, and I remember seeing Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale. At that time, a pitcher could throw a fastball at the armpits and get a called strike. Then that went away. You couldn't get a called strike above the belt for a long, long time. Pitchers learned to go down in the zone because unless the hitter had no discipline he laid off a high fast ball, knowing it would be called a ball. You got strikes called by umpires ala Eric Gregg, 5-6 inches outside, so hitters learned to lean out over the plate to try and hit it. If you threw a high fastball then you had a guy sticking his head right into it when he leaned over the plate. At that point pitchers started going lower, lower, lower; farther and farther outside. It didn't happen overnight, but it became learned behavior over time.
Now with the advent of Pitch/fx and more scrutiny of the strike zone, the high fastball is being called for a strike again. Not like it was in the sixties, but certainly more than it was in the eighties/nineties. It'll take a little time to get pitchers to adjust their game to go back up the ladder.
Or am I completely off my rocker?

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