Falling short

Short people got no reason
To live

Randy Newman

Do you find yourself shrinking?

At one point in my life, I stood 5 foot, 10 inches tall.

Don’t believe me? It said so on my official New York State driver’s license.

My current official NYS driver’s license does not list height. Must be to save me the embarrassment.

Truth be told. I was really 5 foot, 9 inches and “change.” 5 foot, 9 3/4 inches, maybe 5 foot, 9 1/2 inches, although my friend Mike, who since he clears 6 feet thinks he towers over his fellow humans, says only people under 6 feet count the “change.”

According to Wikipedia, average height for males in the U.S. is 5 foot, 9 inches, but for many frail male egos it is kind of a big deal to be 6 feet or taller.

I actually have no problem being smack in the middle of American humanity, even though were I not vertically challenged I clearly would be in the N.B.A.

The problem is that at recent doctor visits I have been measured (shhhh; don’t tell anyone) as LESS THAN 5 foot, 9 inches. 5 foot, 8 inches and “change” is totally different and unacceptable!

I’m shrinking!

As we age, we shrink. A lot of other nasty things happen as we age which I will spare you at this time, but without question most people lose bone and cartilage in the vertebrae of their spine and get shorter starting in their 40’s.

By age 70, men lose an average of one inch in height, women lose two inches, everyone drops another inch in their 80’s, and by this point no one can remember why it matters.

Why do people want to be tall anyway?

According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, there is a “positive association” between height and both income and education, so that taller people are more likely to report enjoyment and happiness.

And it becomes something of an ego thing. For some.

Okay, for some men.

The result is that most men exaggerate their height.

Hollywood leading men are notorious for wearing platform shoes and requiring favorable camera angles.

Even ginormous basketball players are often listed as taller than their actual height. Why do they bother?

Maybe it started when the player was young and needed to impress potential coaches or maybe it is considered intimidating to their opponents.

Frankly, I think it is more intimidating to be like Jalen Brunson of the NY Knicks, a NYC deity listed as (no way!) 6 foot, 2 inches, beating everyone while being a relative Lilliputian.

N.B.A superstar Kevin Durant has been accused of lying about his height in the other direction by saying he is shorter than he actually is.

KD says he is “only” 6 foot, 9 inches but he looks taller than other players who are listed as 7 feet when he stands next to them. What gives KD?

KD says (with a smile) that everyone else is lying about their height.

I like that approach. I will tell my doctor that all her other patients are fibbing and I am really 6 feet tall!

In a recent related turn of events, Major League Baseball players have been found to be aging rapidly.

Soon they may have no choice but to retire and run for the U.S. Senate.

What else but rapid aging could explain the incredible shrinking MLB player?

Out of 430 players on this year’s Opening Day rosters, 225 lost at least one inch off their previously listed heights and, in the aggregate, MLB players lost nearly 20 feet worth of height.

Pictured below is the same MLB player; on the right at his 2025 height, and on the left as he looks today in 2026.

Okay, you got me; just kidding. On the left is Jose Altuve of the Astros (5 foot, 6 inches) an all-star notwithstanding being relatively diminutive, and on the right is Aaron Judge of the Yankees (6 foot, 7 inches) and larger than my front door. Two players on either end of the spectrum.

What’s going on?!

Actually, robot umpires are what is going on and it is now to a player’s advantage to be shorter.

Watching them on television, baseball players do not necessarily wow us with their physical presence in the same way as NBA and NFL players.

Important skills such as hitting a baseball, throwing a baseball, spitting out sunflower seed shells and grabbing their privates on television do not necessarily require great physical stature.

But when you see them up close, baseball players are generally big and strong and pretty impressive athletes.

Why were they fibbing about their height before?

Cleveland Guardians infielder Steven Kwan says “That’s a baseball card thing … It’s common knowledge, you add two or three inches to it.”

This year, MLB instituted its automated ball-strike system (ABS, aka robot umpires) which needs players’ exact heights in order to determine their strike zone.

For those of you out there ignorant about our national pastime, a ball thrown within the strike zone as determined solely by the umpire is a strike and a ball thrown outside the strike zone is a ball.

Now, instead of telling umpires that they need glasses or kicking dirt on their shoes, pitchers, catchers and hitters can maturely appeal umpires’ calls to a machine that can accurately track the pitch within a fraction of an inch.

Then kick dirt on their shoes.

The ABS places each individual’s strike zone as 53.5% of a batters’ height at the top and 27% at the bottom.

For the ABS to work, accurate measurements are required of the players’ heights requiring a strict pose (no slouching!), no shoes, and hair pushed down (not my issue). Lasers conduct a separate measurement against the hand measurement and everyone is measured three times.

All measurements are standardized to take place between 10 a.m. and noon, and avoid risks of growth or shrinkage later in the day. Yes, shrinkage is actually a thing and gives new meaning to the Seinfeld version of shrinking.

Of course, baseball players have been “bending” the rules for years, with spitters, sign stealing and even hidden ball tricks.

One explanation may come from veteran infielder Justin Turner, who asked “… are guys trying to get away with shrinking the [strike] zone somehow, by claiming they are smaller?”

Case in point. Below is a picture of Aaron Judge today (talk about slouching).

No, kidding again.

All this height talk brings back memories of Bill Veeck, Hall of Fame executive of the St. Louis Browns, who in 1951 famously used 3 foot, 7 inch Eddie Gaedel (above) to pinch hit in a game against the Detroit Tigers.

With such a tiny strike zone, and Veeck’s orders not to swing, Gaedel walked on four pitches in his only plate-appearance and ended his career with a perfect on-base percentage of 1.000.

Veeck was known to say “I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity,” making him an ideal politician in quaint bygone days when politics actually was governed by rules, but a total sap today.

Eddie Gaedel is now a Hollywood action film star.

In case you were wondering, under the ABS measurements, 6 feet, 4 inch inhuman superstar Shohei Ohtani, who hits and pitches a la Babe Ruth, just won his third consecutive MVP award, and this year won his second straight World Series, actually grew an inch.

Better get my doctor to measure Shohei and cut him down to size.

Leave a comment