The Pecan Park Eagle

Play It Again, Brad. Play Real Baseball for Us - Before Time Goes By.

Of all the baseball towns in the whole wide major league baseball world, she had to walk into mine.

Her name is Desi Hitner. I call her “DH” for short. 

DH used to be my doll and, in the words of my old buddy, Damon Runyon, she was one fine sweet-looking broad at first glance – the kind of chick that any rising uptown guy like me would be very, very happy to have hanging on his arm for a swell night out on the town in old Houston at a somebody place like the Atomic or Cotton Clubs.

Trouble was – DH had a glitter that wouldn’t stay put. It fell out all over the place, especially on the shoulders, shirt collars, and lips of other guys. You just couldn’t trust the dame. With all the stupefying offensive power she offered with her good looks, she simply had no defense from the hungry eyes of all them big bad wolves who showed up – just to hit upon my gal Hitner.

I had no choice. I had to dump her back in 1973, just about the same time she was becoming real popular with all the dudes in all the American League cities. Over there, DH got so popular that they even named a new stupid hitting rule after her.

Can you believe it? The American League actually created a new position called the “designated hitter” back in 1973  for a player who would come up to hit as a regular part of the batting order for each team in place of one player on the field, usually the pitcher, who wouldn’t bat at all.

And get this: the designated hitter would never take the field at all. The guy wouldn’t ever need a glove because he would never take a fielding position to ever face a batted ball himself.

In theory, at first, and in actuality over time, it became entirely conceivable that a player could have an outstanding MLB career as a hitter without ever, or only rarely, taking the field in a more traditional spot to play defense.

Take Edgar Martinez, for example. Martinez has a Hall of Fame shot with his 18 seasons (1987-2004) as a DH with only some playing time at third and first. Heck! Edgar finished with a .314 batting average and 309 home runs at Seattle – and he might as well have done it all without ever catching so much as a weak pop fly because it was the DH position and his bat that gave him that HOF shot in the American League.

Now the DH is coming to Houston in 2013 with the American League and it’s bringing my old lady friend Desi Hitner, the other DH, with it. It seems that my old DH is now heavily invested up front as a widow to one of the magnates of a Japanese company that holds some shares in the Mariners, a club that will soon enough be a divisional rival of our Houston Astros in the American League West come 2013.

Ouch. I need to stay far away from that web-weaving lady hurt before I have a chance to prove that age and wisdom do not always ride together on the same rails.

In the meanwhile, I’m just going to enjoy some real pitcher-bats-and-manager-has-to-make-strategic-late-in-game-PH-decisions baseball while I still can.

Play it again, Astros Manager Brad Mills. Do it for all the Astros fans, and especially for those  who say they won’t be around after this coming season plays out as the last run through the National League.

You did it for Drayton McLane – and you can do it for us.

Play it again, Brad. – Play real baseball for us in 2012 – before time goes by.

Signed,

The Ghost of Humphrey Bogart

February 23, 2012