Batters flip front-foot homers to the opposite field, joyfully. Pitchers smirk, knowingly. Records fall, daily.
The most home runs by any team in a month (the Yankees). The most home runs by any team in a season (the Twins). The most home runs in club history (Pete Alonso, Jorge Soler, et al.). The highest home run rate in any year, ever, by far.
There is credence to the questions raised by Justin Verlander and others this summer about the most important element of their daily work. Why does the 2019 baseball rocket like a golf ball? How is it built differently than the baseballs of yesteryear? What was the chain of events that led to the apparent alteration, and how did the changes occur?
But here's another essential question: What happens after the players get some of those answers?
What in the hell does a players' union that is split between hitters and pitchers do with that information?
Will the MLB Players Association formally push for a switch back to a less aerodynamic baseball -- a change that might be supported by pitchers but also would undercut the swing adjustments made by many in the current generation of hitters? Or will the union leadership sidestep the conversation, effectively certifying this summer's offensive spasm -- but also forcing the pitchers to cope with the superball in the years ahead?
On its face, the discussion about the baseball would seem to be an inconvenient and potentially divisive issue for a union working to galvanize its ranks in advance of the 2021 labor talks.
The day before the All-Star Game, Verlander's words to ESPN's Jeff Passan about the baseball and the exploding home run numbers were blunt. "It's a f---ing joke," he said. "Major League Baseball's turning this game into a joke." In the National League clubhouse the next afternoon, Max Scherzer shared in a spirited conversation with Dan Halem, MLB's deputy commissioner, as some members of the media walked into the room. Scherzer made the point to Halem that any willful alteration of the baseball would require consent from the players' association.
Lawyers could make a living arguing the two sides of that perspective and how it fits into the collective bargaining agreement. But commissioner Rob Manfred has repeatedly acknowledged in interviews that the baseball is different -- and he has asked the same scientists who issued a report on the 2018 baseball to provide another assessment on this year's version. Once again, physics professor Alan Nathan leads the group.
Eventually, the scientists will present a report, with a set of facts. Manfred will offer MLB's perspective, and perhaps some recommendation about how to proceed. Given the public awareness of the topic and the players' sensitivity to the issue, however, it seems highly unlikely he would unilaterally order changes in the manufacturing of the baseball. Union lawyers might argue he doesn't have the power to do that anyway.
So how will the union respond?
According to Rule 3.01, "The ball shall be a sphere formed by yarn around a small core of cork, rubber or similar material, covered with two stripes of white horsehide or cowhide, tightly stitched together. It shall weigh not less than five nor more than 5½ avoirdupois and measure not less than nine nor more than 9¼ inches in circumference."
While those are the written specifications, it seems obvious by now there can be great variance in the balls created under those general standards. Pitchers have noted differences in the height of the seams, in the hardness, in the smoothness of the surface, in how the ball is prepared.
But who's to say how the baseball should be? The general condition of the ball seems to have changed through the years -- from the dead ball era to the time Babe Ruth popularized the home run, through the great pitchers era leading up to the lowering of the mound in the 1960s to the current model.
Should it be the way Verlander and the pitchers want it? Or should it be built how Cody Bellinger and the hitters prefer it?
With the onset of increased reliever usage, the number of pitchers in the union has grown. Of the 1,357 players to appear in the majors this year, 749 are pitchers, and 608 are position players. Each group shares a general view of how it would prefer the baseball to be; each group has reasons for self-interest.
With the 2019 version of the baseball in play, many of the hitters are enjoying career-best performances. In 2014, 57 hitters compiled 20 or more homers, and this year, 102 batters have already reached that -- and 130 to 140 might by the end of the season. A lot of position players have employed personal coaches, in an effort to refine their swings and learn to hit and lift high-velocity pitches at the top of the strike zone, and as a result, they have done more damage.
"If you push for a change in the baseball back to the way it was," said one club executive, "then what are you telling those guys? What are you doing to those guys, professionally? It might be that the swing that works for them this year wouldn't work if you softened the ball. Maybe those home runs they're hitting this year wind up on the warning track next year. Maybe a player who is a major leaguer with this [2019] baseball isn't as effective if you go back to using something closer to the old ball.
"And if you ask for a change in the ball, you feed into the narrative that what the players have accomplished this year isn't real."
On the other hand ...
"If you don't do something, then what does mean for the pitchers?" asked one player agent. "Is everybody ready to sign up for decades of arena baseball?"
The exec, again: "Do you want this product, with all of the strikeouts and home runs?"
For union chief Tony Clark and the players for whom he works, there are plenty of looming issues that must be addressed in negotiations. Anti-tanking measures. Service-time manipulation. The competitive balance tax levels. Getting players into free agency at a younger age.
But the discussion about the fate of 2019's baseball will bear a unique set of challenges, and potential consequences.