Injuries or resting players

[yak1407]

I believe one reason players missed more games is that in the '70s Sunday and holiday doubleheaders were a common practice.
In addition, there were fewer covered stadiums and rain-outs would typically be made up as part of a double-header.
Most managers would rest their best players for one of the two games.
Over the course of a season, say 20 weeks, that could add up to about 100 fewer ABs and 20 fewer games for some players, especially the older ones and even more if the player was with a team that lost a lot of games as a result of rain in April and May.
On my current team, I only have four players with a 162 game season.
Unfortunately, this is being reflected as injuries in the game.
However, injuries were also more serious then. Knee injuries, for example, drove Tony Oliva out of the game before his time because there was no arthoscopic knee surgery, it was radical surgery and would result in its own permanent damage.
Tommy John had not yet had his ligament replacement surgery which has saved many a player's career these days.
And players just did not take care of themselves as they do today. Few if any players watched what they ate, worked out in the off-season etc. I remember Joe Torre being featued in one article for his diet which consisted of salads and steak. He lost about 20 pounds on it.
Players tried to play through injuries. Starters went longer and tried to pitch through sore or tired arms, on only three days rest. I don't ever recall hearing about a pitcher missing his start because of a tired arm.
Pitchers threw at hitters more and batters were not coming to the plate wearing the armour they do today. I don't even think batting helmets had ear flaps, or if they did, few players used them.
Since most games were played on grass, players wore metal spikes and came in harder to break up the DP. Big difference between getting spiked with metal cleats and plastic ones.
So it was a diffferent game.