Quote:
Originally Posted by ablobj
It's funny...I'm about 35 games into managing the 1988 Twins in a single-season replay and it seems like there are a ton of balks, but prior to this, I managed a 2013 season and balks were rare enough that I never gave them a thought. Didn't realize/remember that umps went balk-crazy in '88.
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If memory served, it all happened in April too. There was some new directive to enforce the balk rules harder, people complained, and so about the time May rolled along, the league went back to normalcy on that front. I *think* that was part of an effort to encourage more baserunning after the power-heavy 1987 season but there, too, the league realized that offenses were back to normal after an unseasonably warm summer the year prior (and I *think* umpires started calling the high strike more as well).