Off-day audio: Conversations with Ron Fairly and Peter Gammons

Ron Fairly and Peter Gammons touch on a number of topics relating to baseball, including how to get more offense into the game.

BY SHANNON DRAYER

Mar 16, 2015, 5:16 AM Updated: 8:56 am

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PEORIA, Ariz. – One of the great things about getting to spend a month at spring training is that you never know who you might run into. Most of baseball is bound to show up at some point or another, and on this off day I would like to share two conversations, one that I witnessed from the back row of the radio booth and another that I initiated after remembering a question I promised a reader I would ask when I got the chance. Ed Altizer, this one’s for you.

When Randy Johnson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, a good debate broke out in the comment section of my post from that day about just how intimidating Johnson was as compared to pitchers from different eras. Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale were brought up as being comparable. Several readers mentioned seeing those players in their day, and I while I never got to see them, I realized that I had access to someone who had quite a history with both, former Mariners broadcaster Ron Fairly. I promised to get his thoughts on the matter the next time I saw him and I did just that last week.

Listen to Shannon Drayer’s conversation with Ron Fairly.

Fairly brought up a few names that weren’t mentioned in our blog discussion and also gave his assessment of how intimidating Koufax and Drysdale were. He also answered a question that I had hoped I would have a chance to ask him sometime soon. This is when things got really interesting. Fairly’s big-league career spanned three decades and he called games for almost 27 years following his playing career. He was involved it the game on a day-in, day-out basis from the day he played his first minor-league game in 1958 (he had just 229 at-bats before the Dodgers called him up at the age of 19) to his final broadcast in 2006. He has an incredible history in the game and I feel fortunate to know him as a person and have him as a great resource.

My question for Ron was about how he would get more offense into the game. Since he was a hitter I thought his ideas would have to do with limiting the pitcher or defense in some way but he put the declining offense we are seeing squarely on the shoulders of the hitters. What blew me away about the conversation was that his analysis leaned toward the saber side. I don’t know if this was intentional and I tend to think it wasn’t, rather, he was focusing on his personal belief of what makes a good hitter. Perhaps the divide between old school and new school is not as great as we tend to think it is.

The second conversation of interest this week was with Peter Gammons, who joined the broadcast on Friday. I wrote up several of the topics in a post but held one back as it reminded me of the conversation with Fairly. Gammons gave his thoughts on the state of offense in the game and like Fairly, his emphasis was on the hitters and what he believes the value placed on the ability to hit home runs has done to them.

Listen to Peter Gammons as he joins Rick Rizzs and Aaron Goldsmith.

“I think that the quest for power that came up in the Steroid Era and the way home-run hitters get paid have really helped pitchers and distorted hitters,” Gammons stated on the broadcast.

He also talked about the impact he thinks defensive shifts could ultimately have on the game and gave his thoughts on pace-of-play rules.

I hope you enjoy the off-day audio.