Kirk Herbstreit was an accomplished college quarterback who became an even more accomplished college football analyst with ESPN. A native of Centerville, Ohio, he sometimes plays a Cincinnati Reds fan online.
Herbstreit usually limits his baseball commentary to takes about his hometown team. But on June 29, he couldn’t help but pile on in response to former New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada’s commentary about the state of MLB.
Posada, 55, said the style of today’s baseball makes it hard for him to watch. He isn’t alone, even though MLB’s television viewership and in-person attendance are on the rise.
Specifically, Herbstreit said he would prefer to watch a more “small ball” oriented game, citing Tony Gwynn, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs and Ichiro Suzuki — prolific singles hitters without much power — as some of his favorites.
“Where did the athletic ability go? Clutch hitting in the 8th and 9th inning? Starting pitching that goes 8 or 9 innings? Base stealing-hell just good base running and SPEED?!? Sac bunts-moving runners over late in a game?” Herbstreit asked rhetorically.
Herbstreit isn’t wrong on a few counts. There have been fewer hits in the eighth and ninth innings in recent seasons as relief pitching has become stingier, and more oriented around strikeouts. The decline in average innings thrown by starters is well-documented; fewer last 8 or 9 innings every season.
However, base-stealing has surged since MLB changed its rules to restrict how often pitchers can throw to a base to hold runners on. Meanwhile, one retired pitcher took umbrage with Herbstreit’s critique of the players’ athleticism — and the way baseball has evolved in response.
“Michael Vick came along & revolutionized the way the QB position was played & defended,” former pitcher Dallas Braden, currently an analyst on the A’s regional network, wrote in response on X. “Just like (Milwaukee Brewers pitcher) Jacob Misiorowski is throwing 106MPH & making it that much tougher to get a bunt down against him. Games change whether we like it or not.”
Herbstreit joined ESPN in September 1995 as a college football sideline analyst. A year later, he was on “College GameDay,” and he was a game analyst on the popular ESPN Thursday night college football series from 1999-2006.
The former quarterback has 1.7 million followers on X, giving him a massive platform to express his baseball worldview. It’s one that begets an obvious response to Braden’s counterargument: “I don’t hear anyone clamoring for ’60 minutes of ground and pound’ these days.”
Specifically: today’s version of the NFL marks an improvement over the 1950s version in the eyes of most. Today’s MLB offers little to those who miss singles, sacrifice bunting, and starting pitchers who were expected to complete each game — a game Herbstreit and others still romanticize.