[Epapazian]

When the baseball magnates decided to inject more oomph into the game to hype their attendance and TV revenues some time ago, they focused on improving the batter's odds relative to the pitcher's. This was accomplished by lowering the height of the pitcher's mound and unofficially shrinking the size of the strike zone. The AL's adoption of the designated hitter was another step in the same direction. So now any pitcher who consistently struggles through six innings before being relieved has delivered what is regarded as a "quality start" and ERAs of 3.5-4.2 are regarded as pretty good. Accomplish both and you're worth $10 million per year to any team that can afford to pay such salaries-----The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, for example. Add to this the steroid business, which was swept under the rug for so long, and its not surprising that baseball sees so many lopsided scores and so much emphasis on the almighty home run. Just look at the way ESPN recaps the games. Maybe the players need two unions, one for the sluggers and one for the downtrodden pitchers.