How have the four major sports changed over the years? - The Boston Globe (2024)

Let’s say you left the country on Jan. 31, 1979.

You spent the ensuing years managing your office branch in Kathmandu, or working on a government project at McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, or perhaps trying to get it right with the Big Guy Upstairs at a monastery somewhere. But now you’re back and you are reconnecting with the meat and potatoes professional sports for the first time in 38 years. Are you going to recognize your favorite games? A few things have changed, so how about a look?

Baseball

Three strikes, four balls, three outs, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Yup, all still intact.

Now then ... recall when it was darn near an obligation for a starter to go nine innings? Ha! Complete games, such as the aberration submitted by David Price on Thursday, merit ticker-tape parades nowadays. Six innings is good. Seven is great. Then you turn it over to the “setup” man, who tees it up for the “closer.” Five guys might collaborate on a shutout. You remember when the A’s won three straight titles with essentially nine-man staffs. Now teams routinely go with 12, and sometimes 13. Relievers are crucial.

Strikeouts? Ready for this? People have struck out in excess of 200 times without losing their jobs! It’s OK, if your launch angle produces the long ball. Your what? Don’t ask.

And what’s with all these guys on the right side of the infield? Is Ted Williams back? No, sadly. But Williams-like shifts are in vogue. And they’re not going away until people learn how to go the other way.

Outs are sacred. There are only 27. So sacrifice bunts have lost their cachet. Same with stolen bases. Forget 70, swiping 40 will get you the crown.

And the dialogue. You know batting average, runs batted in, and ERA. You may need to bone up on OPS, BABIP, and FRAA.

One great positive is the fact that better pure athletes are playing the game than ever before and we are becoming numb to the vast number of spectacular defensive plays on display every day and night of the 162-game schedule.

Basketball

You were always taught that the ultimate object when your team had the ball was a layup. You wanted to work the ball inside, always. Centers ruled. Mikan, Russell, Wilt, Bellamy, Abdul-Jabbar, and many, many more. Get the big guys the basketball and get the hell out of their way. That’s how you played.

Now it’s bombs away. The 3-point shot has staged a hostile takeover of the sport. The thinking is that 3 is better than 2, and that’s it. The once-great offensive center has been marginalized. You can watch an entire NBA game and not once see a team throw the ball inside to a Large Person and ask him to score. If you do throw it to him, he’s more likely to throw it back out for a 3-point attempt. Seven-footers with jump shots, and even 3-point jump shots, are not anomalies. “Stretching the court” is a new job requirement. Hence, the Townses, Embiids, and Porzingises of the day.

Plays? Well, perhaps on occasion. Otherwise it’s pick-and-roll, pick-and-roll, pick-and-roll. And pretty much gone is the classic glass-to-glass organized fast break, with the rebound, outlet pass, middle man, wing men, and — Hi there, Don Nelson — trailer.

Thuggery was once factored into the game, but no more. There are flagrant-1s and flagrant-2s and what was once a “hard foul” is now possible cause for ejection. This is not a bad thing.

And check the rosters. Back in ’85 a Bulgarian named Georgi Glouchkov joined the Phoenix Suns. It was ground-breaking. You have come back to a league in which more than 100 international players representing more than 40 countries and territories are on NBA rosters.

Football

In one very obvious sense, none of our four primary games has changed more than football, if for no other reason than the simple fact that it is now being played to an astonishing extent by bigger, faster, stronger, and more athletic players than 40 years ago.

In 1979, the heaviest Patriot was Hall of Fame offensive guard John Hannah. He was listed at 265 pounds. The heaviest Jet was 270. The heaviest Bill was 270. The heaviest Giants (2) were 275. The largest listed player in the AFC East was a Dolphin named Eric Laakso, who was listed at 285. The heaviest player on the reigning champion Steelers was Mean Joe Greene. You ready? 260!

Now 300 is the old 275, 330 is the old 300, 350 is the old 320, and who knows where it will end? The Patriots now have a guy named Trent Brown, who is listed at 355, but who is rumored to have seen 380.

And a lot of these guys are surprisingly agile. Then go to the marauding linebackers, who do amazing things at 250 pounds or more. The game is undeniably faster all around, despite the gargantuan size of so many of its participants.

The offensive concepts shifted from establishing the run before you pass, to pass, pass, and pass some more. As our football man Ben Volin points out, “Joe Montana never threw for 4,000 yards.” Bart Starr’s high was 2,438. It was power sweep uber alles in Green Bay.

Our man in Kathmandu was used to games in which QBs took the ball on a center snap 100 percent of the time. Now it might be 20 percent, or 10 percent, depending ...

Defensively, the league is trying to protect people due to rising concerns about concussions. Thus, the bone-rattling hits of yore are being legislated out of the game.

There is so much, but one thing our guy might notice is the tremendous number of great catches made by the best assortment of wide receivers the game has ever known.

Hockey

“Speed,” points out Globe hockey maven Kevin Paul Dupont. “The game is faster than ever.”

The athletes are different in this game, too. “Back in the ’70s,” says Dupont, “the game was being played primarily by, if you’ll pardon the expression, Canadian white guys.” Now the talent pool is far more diverse.

But Dupont thinks the speed advance has come at a price. Our time traveler might notice that some of the old-fashioned artistry has disappeared. “With the faster play, the passing, the playmaking is often missing,” Dupont explains. Deflected goals, scrum goals often predominate. “The days of a Guy Lafleur, his hair flying, swooping down the ice and firing one in from 30 feet are gone,” Dupont maintains.

Our McMurdo guy could not have imagined a league with 6-8 or 6-9 defensem*n, but here they are. Forwards who were once routinely 5-11 or 6 feet are 6-3 or 6-4.

Goalie equipment is now enormous. That’s a given. Shot-blocking, once unheard of, is a popular approach. Dupont says you can thank John Tortorella for that.

Our returning monk might well approve of one huge change in the game: fighting is practically extinct. In 1979 every team still had an enforcer/thug/goon whose sole raison d’etre was to fight. “It was still the bucket of blood NHL,” Dupont says. “That’s gone.”

And finally ...

Noise

It began in the NBA with the concept of “game presentation,” the idea that the game was no longer enough to satisfy the customers, that more extraneous pizzazz should be added to the proceedings. The result is you cannot go to a basketball, hockey, football, or even baseball game without being blasted by sound. Conversation is often impossible.

“Audio p*rn,” declares Mr. Dupont.

Anyway, welcome back. Glad to have you.

Bob Ryan’s column appears regularly in the Globe. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.