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	TODAY: Monday, May 15
	Homers, homers, homers By Jayson Stark ESPN.com
	As far as we know, no new home run records have been broken in the last 30 seconds. But it's possible it's just a baud-rate problem. In 1992, Steve Finley played 162 games and hit five home runs. He hit 34 last year and already has eight this season. It's also possible the St. Louis Cardinals haven't homered yet today. But the only conceivable explanation for that is that you're reading this in the afternoon and they haven't had breakfast yet. And theoretically, that might have been only a fast-moving pigeon that just whooshed by your window. But at this point, it's even money it was a home run ball. OK, obviously, you don't need ESPN.com to tell you a few home runs are being hit these days. Turn on your TV. Go through the turnstiles. Or merely walk out your door and look straight up. You can't miss them. But what's truly mind-altering is the number of home runs being hit these days. That number is more than simply historic. It's insane. Here come the figures Please have your seat back in the full upright and locked position before you read them: Through games of April 24, the average game included 2.6 home runs (734 in 282 games). That's almost double the amount of homers you would have seen at an average game back in 1992 (1.4). No, that's not 1892. That's 1992. Meanwhile, a home run had been hit every 26.37 at-bats this year. That's a 15 percent jump over last year's rate of 30.23, which -- of course -- was also a record. If we continue along at that rate, the average hitter who gets 527 at-bats this season will hit 20 home runs. Remember when you needed to hit 20 to be considered a slugger? Now you need to hit 20 to be considered average. The Cardinals had already broken the National League record for home runs in April with a week still left in the month. For that matter, they'd already hit more home runs (44) than the '81 San Diego Padres hit all season (32) -- strike-shrunken (to 110 games) as that '81 season may have been. Then there was April 7, the day more home runs were hit (57) than any previous day in history. And there was April 9, the day the Twins and Royals became the first teams to hit back-to-back-to-back home runs in the same game. That's the Twins and Royals, not the Indians and Blue Jays. And how about April 21, the day Mo Vaughn, Tim Salmon and Troy Glaus became the first threesome ever to hit home runs in an inning twice in the same game. And let's not forget April 23, the day Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada became the first teammates to switch-hit homers from each side of the plate in the same game. That's what we've seen three weeks of a season in which the weather in many places hasn't topped Karl Malone's playoff scoring average. So what's this all about? Is it good or bad or neither? And what should baseball do about it? Those are the questions. Here come some answers. What's going on? We polled a panel of 10 players, managers and scouts. They had plenty of theories. Here they come, in descending order of votes they got: Stronger hitters. Livelier ball. Harder ball. Miniaturized strike zone. Expansion and/or lack of enough decent pitchers. Ready for more? Here goes. Baseball wants it this way. The art of pitching inside is dying. No seams on the ball. Pitchers get paid whether they succeed or not. Better hitters. Not enough change-ups. El Niño. Solar flares. And even ESPN (for instilling fear in the pitchers). So which of those is it? Yes. In other words, all of them. We can't run through every explanation. Besides, there are links here to more detailed looks at all of the biggies. But here are some of our favorite theories: Stronger hitters: "Hitters don't look like they did when I came up," says veteran Diamondbacks reliever Dan Plesac, who reached the big leagues in 1986. "If somebody walked in a major-league clubhouse now and saw these guys out of uniform, they'd say, 'These guys look like linebackers in the NFL.' And not just the first basemen, the third basemen and the outfielders (as well). The middle infielders are 6-4, 215. But what can we do as pitchers? I could go in the weight room for five months in the offseason, and it won't make me any better a pitcher." Rocketballs: "It's the ball," says Padres coach Tim Flannery. "We were in Montreal last week, and when I broke in, in 1980, if you hit the wall there or hit one home run, it was something. This year, we had five monster blasts in one game, and balls were going well over the bleachers. If this keeps up, (Ryan) Klesko is going to kill someone. He knocked (Jose) Vidro down at second base with a line drive, flipped him on his back. The ball is going farther, because it's wound tighter." Harder balls: "I've spoken at length with these Hall of Famers," says Phillies ace Curt Schilling. "Steve Carlton, Bob Gibson, Robin Roberts, Jim Palmer. To a man, they all have commented on how incredibly hard the baseball is these days. Rawlings says it's not so, so everyone says, 'OK,' and looks elsewhere. But all of those pitchers said that when they pitched, you could physically move the leather on a baseball -- 'wrinkle it,' was the term they used. The baseballs we use are like pool balls, hard as a rock. This, in my opinion, is a very significant factor in the increase in home runs." “ Do fans want the game 14-10? I honestly don't believe they do. They want major league baseball. And that ain't major league baseball. ” — Curt Schilling No change-ups: "I asked our pitching coach, Oscar Acosta, why he thought the home run rate was higher," says Cubs infielder Jeff Huson. "And he said, 'The straight change-up is not taught anymore. That's the one pitch that keeps the hitter off-balance the most. You need to speed up and slow the bat down. And that's the one pitch that does it best.' " Too much ESPN: "Watching ESPN nightly, as a pitcher," Schilling says, "is like being forced to watch a lineup made up entirely of Mark McGwires take BP at Coors Field on the day you pitch. It ain't fun. Guys come to the big leagues with a 'fear-of-contact' mentality. They're avoiding early strikes to try and 'fool' or 'trick' big-league hitters. Problem is, the hitters you 'fool' and 'trick' are in Triple-A. Now the count is 1-0, 2-0, 3-1, and you have to come with the fastball -- ON THE PLATE. Those are the pitches that hit facades, upper decks, San Francisco Bay, families of four in the loge section, etc." Lack of gravity: "A solar flare from the star Betelgeuse caused disruptions in the earth's gravitational field," theorizes Phillies center fielder (and Penn grad) Doug Glanville, "thus reducing the strength of the field by a factor of 1.3. Therefore, by the equation F=mg (m=mass, g=gravitational strength) 'g' has been reduced by this same factor, causing less force to be 'holding down' any object in question. A baseball will indeed travel considerably further. Hence, more home runs." Uh, Betelgeuse, this is earth. Cut that out. What now? The world won't end if every baseball game winds up 14-11, with eight homers. The only trouble is, the games won't end, either. Not before Conan O'Brien, anyway. So what should baseball do? A) Hire more accountants and count the money? B) Hire more statisticians and count the homers? C) Raise the mound? D) lower Colorado? We got lots of suggestions on this topic, too. They included: Fix the strike zone. Raise the mound. Push back the fences. Kill the DH. Bring in extra gravity. And many variations of: Adjust to the times. Bigger strike zone: "For some reason, the strike zone has shrunk," Schilling says. "Hey, I watch ESPN every single night. I see the highlights. The strike zones are smaller. Anyone can see that. Smaller strike zones equate to less plate to cover for hitters, who can now narrow their zone to a much smaller area, and voila! More solid contact, more home runs." Raise the mound: "It's the only fair thing to do," Plesac says. "If they're going to bring the fences in, make the parks smaller and have every innovation help the offense, that's the one thing they can do to help the pitchers. Of course, Randy Johnson and Pedro could pitch from second base and still get guys out. I was watching Randy the other night, and I said, 'See, this game's not hard. Just be 6-10 and throw 97 on the black on both sides of the plate.' But not everyone can do that." Ban the DH: One player, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he can't see what purpose the DH serves anymore. "Nothing like the DH exists in any other sport," he says. "Imagine having somebody come onto the basketball court just to shoot Shaq's free throws just because he can't shoot them. That's what baseball does. Just because the pitcher can't hit, you have somebody else come off the bench and hit. But part of the joy of watching the game is saying, 'I can shoot free throws better than Shaq.' Or, 'I can hit better than that pitcher.' " Import gravity: "Pump pseudo gravity (PG) into every stadium, kind of like putting weights on every baseball," says Glanville, drawing once more on those physics classes at Penn. "They could say, 'The PG stopped that ball from going out.' Announcers would love it. Fans would have to go through gravity-adjustment training, but that would be part of the fun. Just don't drop your hot dog on your foot." But we can assure you baseball has no plans to bring in the physics professors. And if the pitchers are waiting for any other assistance, the commissioner suggests they might have a long wait. "I don't like adjusting rules or changing rules," says Bud Selig. "I know we did it in '68 or '69, but I'd rather not do that. And I certainly don't want to do it on the basis of the first couple of weeks of the season." So Selig's message to everyone is: Adjust. And he's right. If this is what the game is now, then teams ought to be mulling what's the best way to survive in this crazy new world. Good for the game? Or bad? Phillies manager Terry Francona says that the more he watches all kinds of hitters -- good and bad -- earning a living on pitchers' mistakes, the more "I continue to believe that (building around) very good pitching is the way to win." And will we ever see track teams like those mid-'80s Cardinals anymore? Why would we, wonders Flannery, "when anyone, anytime, can hit an opposite-field home run." It is even changing the way he coaches third, he says -- "because why, with two outs, would you try to jam a runner home, and take the chance we usually do with two outs, when you would only get one run if he is safe? The next guy might hit a three-run home run. The big innings are now what this game is all about." Ah, but is that good or bad? Well, we're glad we asked ourselves that. Because, ultimately, the fundamental question here is ... IS IT GOOD OR BAD? Schilling wonders: "Do fans want the game 14-10? I honestly don't believe they do. They want major league baseball. And that ain't major league baseball." But the record attendances say otherwise. And the Sammy and Mac Show of '98 -- covered by everyone from Rolling Stone to Regis and Kathy Lee -- said otherwise. "Today's society is a visual one," says veteran scout Gordon Lakey. "They don't have the patience to watch a 1-0 shutout." "The game ain't better," says Tigers closer Todd Jones. "It's just different. Fans like it, so they keep doing it." The conspiracy theorists are out there, naturally -- the people who think Bud and his cohorts sneaked into a lab after the strike and designed all this as their master plan to save baseball. To that, the commish says: "Was this some pre-ordained plan? Absolutely not." But Selig also says: "I think, for the most part, fans enjoy this. I don't think there's any doubt about that." So why, ultimately, would he want to mess with something that most fans enjoy? "What should the game do about this? Nothing," says a pitcher who asked not to be named. "This game is for entertainment purposes. Our job is to make it enjoyable for the fans. I think people would much rather see Big Mac hit than Maddux pitch. I wouldn't. But that's just me." Life is about change. Nothing in life stays the same. Nothing in sports stays the same. Baseball may be the most traditional sport on the planet. But that doesn't mean it should stay the same, either. Face it, friends. They're not going to blow up these new ballparks and redesign them. They're not going to shrink the hitters. They're not going to use modern science to bring in that pseudo-gravity or clone Pedro Martinez. So this is reality. This is baseball in the 21st century. So we'd urge the powers that be to call more strikes, start the games earlier and ban steroids. We'd urge the pitchers to learn the fine art of inducing more ground balls. We'd urge the hitters and the coaching staffs to remember that there's more to the essence of baseball than waiting around for the home run. We'd urge the number crunchers to point out more frequently that a 20-homer man now isn't what a 20-homer man used to be. And we'd urge broadcasters everywhere to come up with as many new home run calls as possible. Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.		ALSO SEE Home run theories Off Base: Carnage out of control Users sound off on all the home runs AUDIO/VIDEO  ESPN's Jayson Stark talks about this year's home run craze. wav: 266 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6