One hundred years into live ball era, is baseball a better game?

Style of play has been a hot topic this season, when records are falling left and right, and center, too. That sounds pretty exciting, but a lot of people have a lot of problems with which records are falling because of what it says about the product. Which, by the way, remains wonderful. Perfect? No. But still pretty damned good.

Whether you love it, hate it or fall somewhere in the middle, you can't really debate whether baseball has changed. We know it has. We keep track of what happens and have been keeping track since Ulysses S. Grant was president. The changes recently have been startling -- more homers, more strikeouts, more hit by pitches, more relief pitchers, etc. Some like it,…