OT: Scooter Gennett Hits 4 Home Runs in 1 Game
 

Only the 17th player in the history of the game to do this.

He hit more home runs in this one game than he had all year.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOu0mHBjxfE

Very cool. Looks like all 300 people that were there were pretty psyched, too. :)

I agree. Great performance. MLB has done an awful job of promoting itself....or they have just priced the average person out of going to games.

This is arguably the most out of context performance in major league history. If you look at people who threw no hitters or even perfect games (both of which are more common than 4 HR games) you find a number of folks you wouldn't expect. There's really no one on the post-deadball list (arguable exception being Pat Seerry, though he was certainly a power hitter with as many as 31 in the minors) like Scooter. Even the pre-deadball four homer in a game hitters (Delehanty and Lowe) we among the best power hitters of their generation, they just didn't have gaudy career totals.

I can guarantee that 10 years from now, 50,000 people will say they were at that game even though there were only 300.

I know they called him Hard Hittin' Mark Whiten but he wasn't all that hard hitting either.

It's been a pretty fun week or so for cool baseball stuff...a no-hitter, triple play, 600th home run, and a 4-HR game.

Aw, my 2017 St. Louis Cardinals... (sigh)

Wow! I would need a scooter to get myself around the bases at the end of a night like that.

That's just a blog of some dude with an opinion. I don't agree with his conclusions...in fact I think they are intentionally contrarian, but disagreement is one off the things that makes baseball so great to follow and talk about.

I think they have priced the average person out of going to games.

This is the first year in many that i have even watched games on tv. I have been enjoying it very much. So I looked into going to a game in Minneapolis because it is only 300 miles away and by far the closest place to see one. I was like WTF when I seen good seats at $118 and decent seats at $89. Nose bleed seats are $41 and this is for the Twins. It would cost more for a family of 4 to go to a game and set in good seats than the average person makes in a week.

I took a couple of my kids to the game where Mike Trout injured his thumb. Pretty good seats too -- fourth row, right-centerfield. I think it was like $100 total, half of which was cotton candy, parking, and ticket "fees."

The way I've always seen it is that owning an MLB team is an ego boosting hobby and not about making money. Team owners are beyond rich, with or without their teams, and can afford to take huge losses. So they keep one-upping each other, offering players $20M+/year, raise ticket prices to pay for it, then if they take a loss in ticket sales, they just write it off from the deck of their yacht. As bad a rap as golf gets for being a rich white person sport, baseball has gotten just as bad.

Though I, too, have been following more closely this year (great crop of young, exciting players), I haven't been to a game in years. For the money, I'd much rather go see a show than watch a game that, statistically speaking, isn't going to be that exciting or meaningful to the outcome of the season. Eighty one games is too much supply for the demand at that price, IMO.

It is some dude with an opinion AND data. Just citing a data-based article on the topic. I don't see a better argument here. I could care less whether it is the most random player to have a great game or not but I like data and facts.

With today's prices, only the rich and big corporations will be able to get decent seats. I can remember paying about $3.50 for box seats at Yankee Stadium back in the early 60's. The best part was that I sat on field level and got to see Maris & Mantle play closeup.

I find the games to still be affordable if you're an individual or a couple. They've moved away from family gatherings and more to social ones. If I paid $80 for two seats and spent another $40 at the game on food, $120 is pretty reasonable for a weekend outing for two.

...because God forbid we turn a new generation on to the game :D

Although they are the cheap seats, I think I could go to major league games at half the stadium for less than I could see my local minor league team. They sold for a lot of money a few years back and the cheapest seat is $10. I've seen several $5 sales for major league teams this year.

I think its naive to think that baseball still has any intentions to market itself to the young. Look at the price of a pack of baseball cards.

Last week I attended a game at Marlins Park for the first time. Really cool indoor stadium, but I went to a day game and the crowd was incredibly sparse. Although the box score announced an attendance of 15,000+, an actual head count revealed the real crowd was only...1590. That's woefully bad for a major league game.

Now it's fun to watch a game in an empty stadium, but I can't imagine how much money the team lost that day. Baseball does have some issues to deal with. As stated, tickets in general are much too expensive (although the Miami tickets were only around $30 each which isn't bad, and they were good seats).

My son and I go to a lot of Astros games and they're not too expensive. It's not the Astrodome in 1989, but I can get decent seats and pay for parking for about $80. We can get really cheap seats and catch a game for $40 or so. At Minute Maid Park you can bring your own food (Peanuts, sandwiches, chips, etc) as long as it's in clear ziplock bags. You can also bring bottled water in.

Scrambling for Scooter cards:
 

One of the specialized 'corners' of my collection is players who have achieved one of the following one game feats:

For Pitching: Perfect Game

For Fielding: Unassisted Triple Play

For Hitting: Four Homeruns


I never thought I'd be going after Scooter cards for the Hitting portion

...and before I get my first Bobby Lowe card.

.

MLB owners and the MLB are doing quite well with MLBAM. When you take a look at the subsidiaries, you can see that the NBA and NHL have also latched on, enabling it to be quite the lucrative endeavor.

I am by no means wealthy, but as a family of four, we go to 4-5 games/year, and either sit right behind the on-deck circle, or in the first three rows right past the dugout on the 1st base line. This is at Citi Field. I've found the attendance to be pretty strong in comparison to other stadiums. I've seen a good amount of young kids that are really into baseball. I think we see less than we did in, say the 50s-80s because the NBA and NFL have become more marketed and are reaching a wider audience than they did in the past. However, I don't think kids are being priced out of the sport. There are still far more kids doing Little League than playing youth basketball, at least in my area.

Two words, for inexpensive (good seats) tickets: Stub Hub!! Always. Never go through the stadium's ticket office.

+100

Even at Fenway, where the Red Sox sold out most games for the past decade, tickets can be found cheap on stubhub in many cases. Sure, you won't find any cheap seats for a July weekend series against the Yankees, but be a bit flexible with dates and/or teams and you can find very affordable seats for any stadium in baseball.

I do hate the handling fees, though.