Baseball Enlarges Strike Zone; Baseball Cards Make Small Items Big Business
BOB LORENZ, HOST: Change is good. At least that's what people say. And with opening day Major League Baseball just around the corner, we're about to find out if that axiom is true. On this edition of PAGE ONE, it could be up, up, and away for major league hitters this season if they're not ready to swing away at the high strike.</s>TONY GWYNN, PADRES OUTFIELDER: It's higher than what we've been used to seeing. And they call it a strike. Oh, man, it's going to be tough.</s>ART HOWE, A'S MANAGER: There's going to be some complaining, some arguing.</s>LORENZ: Big Mac is back, hungry to hit and healthy again after too much time last season in the trainer's room and not enough at the plate swinging for the fences.</s>MARK MCGWIRE, CARDINALS FIRST BASEMAN: To reach 50 is good. Sixty is reachable. And I don't know about 70, but I'll stop at 60.</s>LORENZ: And baseball cards aren't for bicycle folks anymore. It's big business for small items.</s>MARK MULDER, A'S PITCHER: My sister goes on eBay and buys all my cards. And I'm paying the bill. But some of those cards get damn expensive, I'll tell you.</s>LORENZ: Hi, everybody. Thanks once again for joining us on PAGE ONE. I'm Bob Lorenz. For decade after decade, baseball has been a game of constants. Bases are 90 feet apart. Pitchers stand 60 feet, six inches from home plate. And the Cubs and Red Sox never win the World Series. But this year, there may be a fundamental change in the way the game is played as baseball throws the books at pitchers and hitters, the rule book that is, reestablishing the strike zone as it is written.</s>LORENZ (voice-over): Balls and strikes are normally as basic a part of spring training as working on fundamentals. But this year, the simple strike call is getting an adjustment.</s>GWYNN: I think early games this spring, guys are going to be stepping out of the box shaking their heads wondering, how do I attack this?</s>LORENZ: From Arizona's Cactus League to Florida's Grapefruit League, umpires have been staging demonstrations of the new high strike they have been instructed to call by Major League Baseball. Previously, the typical umpire strike zone went from the bottom of the kneecaps to the belt. But now baseball is mandating umpires follow the rule book, raising the upper limit to midway between the top of the shoulders and the top of the pants.</s>JEFF NELSON, MLB UMPIRE: We're trying to get a consistent interpretation of the strike zone. The pitch is still going to be the umpire's judgment. But we're all going to try to be on the same page with what we're looking for.</s>MIKE HAMPTON, ROCKIES PITCHER: A consistent strike zone. And I think it's all a pitcher or a hitter can ask for. As long as you give it some consistency and you know we know what it's going to be, we can deal with it.</s>TED BARRETT, MLB UMPIRE: It's definitely going to be an adjustment. But we've got spring training. We've got a month to work on it. And hopefully by the end of spring training, we'll be all dialed in to the new strike zone. See, that's a pitch you'd take before. I mean, this might lead to more base hits, that guy swinging up there.</s>LORENZ: One of the motivations behind the return of the high strike is that it should force batters to swing at more pitches, putting the ball in play more often. Baseball hopes that will help speed up games that averaged a numbing three hours, two minutes last season. However, the only pitchers who may dare to throw upstairs consistently are the flame throwers such as Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson.</s>MIKE SCIOSCIA, ANGELS MANAGER: You're probably talking about maybe three to five percent of the pitchers. And I think that it will be an advantage for some guys that have the good fast ball and can ride it up.</s>KENNY ROGERS, RANGERS PITCHER: For me, I'm a guy that stays down in the zone more. If I get up in the zone, that's when I get hit because I don't have the stuff to throw it by people up there.</s>MULDER: If I miss, it's just going to get 500 feet. So there's a fine line between pitching up in the strike zone and pitching farther up in the strike zone to be effective.</s>ALEX RODRIGUEZ, RANGERS SHORTSTOP: In fast ball up there, unless you're a guy that throws over 90, 95 miles an hour, that's kind of a dangerous zone. So I'm happy about the opportunity that is high and not low. I don't want that move to a lower because lower is obviously a much tougher pitch to hit.</s>LORENZ: Pitchers who work the corners may also be affected by the new strike zone. Baseball has told umpires to stop being so lenient with pitches off the plate, some of which were previously called strikes.</s>TOM VERDUCCI, BASEBALL WRITER: That down-and-away strike, as the people in Atlanta know by watching Tommy Glavin (ph) and Greg Maddox (ph), that's the one where a lot of pitchers live off of. And if that's taken away and the umpires swear they will call only the width of the plate, nothing more, that's going to have a much bigger impact on the game.</s>HOWE: I don't care if they call a strike over the guy's head if they can reach it. Pitches that are six inches off the outside corner you can't reach. And if they're being called strikes, the pitchers have a huge advantage.</s>LORENZ: But while pitchers consider whether to adapt their strategy on the mound, batters too face the challenge of adjusting their strike zones or risk getting rung up on pitches that were formerly balls.</s>GWYNN: You've got guys working down and working in and out. And now they go up to the zone, and it's higher than what you've been used to seeing. And they call it a strike. Oh, man, it's going to be tough.</s>MCGWIRE: The bottom line, the guy has to throw a strike. He has to try to throw it over the plate. And I've got to try to hit it. So that's the way I look at it. I just think it's just a big thing right now. And we'll just see where it goes.</s>LORENZ: And that leads us to today's web poll, which you can find at CNNSI.com. How do you think the higher strike zone will affect baseball the most? Will it lead to a home run bonanza or more strikeouts? Or maybe it will just lead to more arguments. And if baseball gets its way, it could shorten games. We want to know what you think. So log on and vote. We will have the results later. So if you think of pitchers as artists, they have a different size canvas to paint on this season. And the top artist, if you will, for the Mets is lefty Al Leiter, who joins us now. And, Al, thanks for being here. You got a little feel for that last night against the Expos. Two innings, two hits. Two shut-out innings, I should mention. And talk about that new strike zone. How was it? What was the feel like?</s>AL LEITER, METS PITCHER: You know, actually yesterday, Bob, I was trying to get some opportunities to throw it up in the zone to see if the umpire would call it. And actually, I didn't get a chance. The Expos are a free swinging team. And as a matter of fact, one guy hit a ball that was neck high off the wall. So maybe it's not too good. But really I think what should be understood is it's not necessarily I'm hearing some quotes about guys saying that only three or four guys in the league can live up there. I'm not talking about guys living up there. I'm talking about getting the high strike and then carrying up the ladder, the old school of guys that used to go up the ladder, so to speak. And you don't have to throw 95 miles an hour to get guys to chase the ball higher than high. And, look, from the time when they lowered the mound and brought in the DH and several things to bring offense to it, I don't see anything wrong with it. This is going to help pitchers to get back to an even playing field. Hopefully, this is a good thing.</s>LORENZ: Also gives the impression that that pitch is easier to hit. That might not be the case for some guys. Personally, though, for you, are you going to have to make any big adjustments because you like to live a little bit inside, a little bit outside? And supposedly the umpires are going to clamp down on the corners as well.</s>LEITER: Yeah, I throw what's called a cut fast ball or a slider. I live inside on the righties mostly. But still, there's mistakes that we view as mistakes that are high pitches that supposedly are going to be called strikes. And I think there's going to be a initial adjustment for hitters to have the shock value or looking back that normally has always been considered a ball, they're going to be called a strike. And now the guys that are able to carry that up maybe three or four more inches and have guys that now are swinging at pitches that are out of the zone, it will put the ball in play more. And hopefully we'll have quicker games and guys will be swinging more.</s>LORENZ: Well, let me ask you about that. Baseball, that's one of the reasons they're doing it. They want to shorten the games, the average time about three hours, two minutes last year. Do you feel they need to be shorter, that games need to be shorter?</s>LEITER: I get tired of watching some long games too, especially when you see at the end of the game you've played a three-and-a-half- hour game and it was three to two. I mean, that's been the norm. It's not 10-nine games that are three-, four-hour games. It's low- scoring games. And if something has to do with that -- another rule coming, you're in the minor league, the free swinging minor leaguers. And then you get to the big leagues, you see more hitters that are more selective. The Yankees come to mind. They're a team that carry it deep in the count (ph), always make you throw so many pitches. And if you could eliminate each batter down to two, three, maybe four pitches in a bat, that's going to save 40, 50 pitches a game.</s>LORENZ: Well, you know, the one thing is umpires -- maybe a good expression would be they're strong willed. Maybe that's a good way of putting it. Do you think the new strike zone will be enforced? Or do you think some guys are going to resist and stick with the way they used to call it?</s>LEITER: I absolutely think it's going to be enforced. I think the way baseball has come down on it, they've done more than just send out memos. They've had camps and clinics for these guys. We had Bruce Fromley (ph) in here telling us about the new strike zone. And Bruce has been considered one of the crabbier umpires in the game, and he's a very good umpire. But he said, "I'm not going to have a problem calling that pitch a strike. If everybody's on the same page, both managers, both benches, everybody in baseball knows that that pitch that's generally viewed as a ball, that the catcher catches it a little above the mask is a strike, they're fine with it." And I think they're going to be able to do it.</s>LORENZ: Let's talk about your team real quick. In the off season, there were hopes of signing Alex Rodriguez. He didn't go. Mike Hampton (ph), you wanted to bring him back. He decided to go to the Rockies instead. Some people might say, "Well, nothing really happened for the Mets. They took at least a half-step back." What is your response to that?</s>LEITER: Well, I think anytime you don't get to sign Mike Hampton back it's definitely viewed as a big loss. And certainly Mike is missed. But I think by bringing in Kevin Napier (ph) and Steve Traxell (ph), it's certainly fortified our five-man rotation to be pretty formidable. I think our bullpen is as strong as ever. And yes, we didn't really do much on the offensive side. If you remember last year in the beginning of the year, we had Derek Bell (ph) and Wright (ph). And really other than not having Derek here, our offense is the same as last year's national championship teams. The nice thing too also about New York is knowing that we have an ownership and a general manager that's not afraid to pull the trigger, that there's always something that may be in the background to improve the team as we're playing the Dodgers today and the whole Gary Sheffield thing.</s>LORENZ: That is a story in itself, Al. Thanks for being with us. Enjoy the rest of your spring down there.</s>LEITER: OK, thanks, Bob.</s>LORENZ: All right, still to come on PAGE ONE, we're going to take a look at the annual pose down at spring camps. And when the Tops baseball card folks show up, you've got to have the look because you want that card to be worth something, don't you?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember the head shot that I took because I almost got in trouble from Tom Kelly (ph). I was with the Twins. And the guy was trying to take my head shot. "Let's go, Nagle (ph). You think you're special? Get over here with the rest of the group." We were just getting ready to start stretching and stuff. So I hurried up. I had to take a quick picture. My hat was on sideways and stuff.</s>LORENZ: And later, one of baseball's biggest poster boys, both figuratively and literally. Big Mac, we'll talk about him, about his return, his hitting prowess, and the state of America's pastime. Don't go away.