Why MLB great Gary Sheffield doesn’t watch baseball anymore

Gary Sheffield was a single of baseball’s most outspoken stars in the course of his taking part in days, major to a job in retirement as a studio analyst with TBS for the postseason.

The former slugger states he no longer watches the activity, citing the rise in strikeouts and property operates as the motive.

“I really don’t enjoy baseball at all,” Sheffield told CBS Athletics Radio final week. “I was form of forced to enjoy baseball, because I was working with TBS. And so I experienced to keep in mind, truly uncover out who had been these players.

“I’ll tell you the magic formula now: I hardly ever viewed the online games in the course of the period. I would get educated on it when I bought there. It’s not a little something that I could enjoy, centered on what I’m seeing, because I’ll be a complainer. … This is the very first time I’ve ever said that out loud, but I’m just definitely unhappy with what I enjoy.”

Gary Sheffield MLB
Gary Sheffield, viewed listed here with the Yankees in 2006, states he does not enjoy baseball any longer.
Anthony J. Causi

Sheffield hit 509 vocation property operates, twenty sixth on the all-time checklist, about 22 significant-league seasons, which includes three yrs with the Yankees from 2004-06 and a single with the Mets in 2009. He hardly ever struck out additional than 83 times in any period.

“(Baseball was thrilling) when I was taking part in. They’ve applied all these procedures now and they’ve transformed the activity so a lot, they’re creating it additional hitter-helpful, even without having getting success,” Sheffield said. “These guys can go out there and strike out a hundred and eighty-one hundred ninety times, and it is Okay.

“And then all of a sudden they exhibit a property operate. Now, a property operate is considerably less attractive, when a property operate was a major deal and additional attractive [when I performed] because it wasn’t occurring as typically as it is now.

“That’s the way the activity is performed nowadays, that does not signify I have to enjoy it,” Sheffield extra.

The 52-12 months-aged Sheffield has three yrs remaining on the Hall of Fame ballot soon after earning a ten-% bump to forty.6% in his seventh visual appearance before this 12 months.