Letters

Small Ball

I hope baseball is returning to the days of small ball, as Tom Verducci proposes in When Bigger Gets Smaller, Small Gets Big (May 30). But I think it would have anyway, even if players continued to take steroids. Pitching is finally recovering from the dilution caused by expansion in the 1990s. As a result, when hitters must face several pitchers in almost every game, it is difficult to get a base hit, much less a home run. Once teams had to manufacture runs by stretching singles into doubles and fighting for each 90 feet of progress. Every team had at least one player who each season stole bases by the dozens, and if you hit 30 home runs a year, you were considered a power hitter. It used to be a fun game to watch. It is, hopefully, becoming more fun again.

Chuck Rayburn, Chattanooga

In I Was a Toronto Blue Jay (March 14) Tom Verducci reported that umpire supervisor Rich Garcia told the players that there would be more high and low strikes called this season. I've observed the umps doing this, and I believe this--and not the incredible shrinking slugger--is the main reason why offense has slowed down.

Randy Nelson, Vincennes, Ind.

You See?

You incorrectly used the initials CU for the University of Cincinnati (Who's Hot/Who's Not, May 30), widely referred to as UC. Perhaps you confused Cincinnati's troubled basketball team with Colorado's troubled football team.

Craig Kohls Morrow, Ohio

Poker Faces

Thanks for your story about the big winners and losers of online poker (Online and Obsessed, May 30). Between those extremes are the bulk of college gambling addicts: neither arrogant sharks nor naive fish, just intelligent kids with too much time. These are the guys I know, the ones who transferred their video game obsession to online poker and turned a pleasant diversion into a grim way of life.