“For more than 100 years, baseball looked pretty much the same from the grandstands. * * * From 2010 to 2013, infield shifts steadily increased * * * But from 2013 to this season, the rate of shifting in the major leagues has mushroomed. * * * ‘You do it because it works,’ said Mark Teixeira, the Yankees first baseman.
“But as much as the shift is blossoming this year, it is hardly a new phenomenon. There is evidence of the shift going back more than 130 years. * * * Bill Francis[ ] recently discovered evidence of an infield shift in a June 25, 1870, account in The New York Clipper of a game between the Atlantics of Brooklyn and the Cincinnati Red Stockings. ‘The Cincinnati fielders moved about in the field, according as the different batsmen came to bat,’ the Clipper story said, noting that it was innovative.
My comment:
(a) Though I am not a sports fan, this story is intriguing--and makes sense in hindsight.
(b) View the photo and the graphic first. In the photo showing the shifting strategy batter-by-batter, the shortstop moved toward where the second baseman might have stood, whereas the second baseman now stood between the shortstop and the first baseman, concentrating on right field--because the hitter (Curtis Granderson) had shown, through statistics, a propensity to hit right field (probably because he is a “left-handed hitter[ ] who regularly pull the ball to the right”).