Some “DH” stars can knock the cover off the ball without being able to run to, get to, or catch and throw one in the field – because they are not expected to do all that other stuff.
If you’re a National League baseball fan, you had to know it was coming from the very moment that Commissioner Bud Selig arm-twisted (and palm-greased) wannabe new owner Jim Crane into taking his freshly purchased NL Houston Astros to the American League as a condition of the former’s approval on the latter’s purchase of same.
Now here it comes. The start. Or whatever. The call to universalize the “DH” for the betterment and love of the game.
Jake Simpson, a sports columnist for The Atlantic’s Entertainment channel got the written support rolling pretty good last summer in his June 25, 2012 article, “Why Every Team in Baseball Should Use Designated Hitters.”
Once Simpson gets past “chicks dig the longball” increase-the-offense argument and the fact that the National League is now the lone holdout on playing baseball “the right way,” the writer claims that the regular play between the two leagues throughout the year, in effect, cries out for a universality on this rule, rather than to force clubs from each league to constantly adjust to the different requirements on a continuous basis. Simpson put it this way in the last sentence of his piece: “Now that interleague play will be a season-long constant instead of a month-long novelty, let’s bring the oldest two-party system in sports a step closer to playing like one league, rather than two.”
So, what do you readers think? Are we now headed faster to a showdown in MLB over the absence of the DH in the National League?
The forces behind the pitch for a universal “DH” appear to be marshaling.
If this is to happen, if the DH becomes the universal rule in MLB, what will you do? Which of your two basic choices are you likely to act upon? Will you adjust and move on with the new rule reality? Or will you stop watching baseball altogether? For Astros fans, that’s basically the point they’ve reached now because of the club’s movement to the AL in 2013. – I’m wondering what fans in cities like St. Louis would do, if the “DH” is also soon forced upon them full-time?
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