Interleague Play and DH rules change

Here is Bud Selig's new proposal. Basically during interleague play the DH/pitcher rules that usually govern the visiting team will be in effect during the interleague games next year. Currently it is the rules governing the home team.

Commissioner Bud Selig is noodling over the idea of tweaking the [interleague] format. Next year, the designated hitter could be unveiled during Interleague games in National League parks with the pitcher hitting in American League parks.

"I really like the fact that Mr. Selig is considering flip-flopping the DH into the NL cities next year," Arizona Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said before his club clobbered the Tigers at Bank One Ballpark on Sunday. "It'll be neat in the American League cities, so fans can see how the dynamic of the pitcher hitting in the ninth spot affects the game."

A generation of AL fans has never attended games and watched baseball the way it was originally intended to be played -- with the pitcher hitting for himself.

You would not think this is too importnat with the mass media providing access to NL games. After talking with a few Twins fans they really do not appreciate the entirely new aspect of tension that comes into a game in the late innings. It really becomes a different game. Over the course of a series this is also a huge impact on rosters and bullpen management.

That all changed forever on April 6, 1973, when Ron Blomberg, then playing for the New York Yankees, became the first DH in baseball history as he stepped to the plate against Boston's Luis Tiant at Fenway Park. The game has never been the same, and it's not going back.

The lords of the AL in those days, led by Oakland's cantankerous owner Charlie Finley, adopted the DH, baseball's most progressive rule change since the spitball was banned in 1920. The NL owners didn't want anything to do with it back then, and they certainly don't want anything to do with the DH today.

But old-style baseball is really an anachronism, a quaint reminder of when the Major Leagues had only 16 teams (none playing farther west than the banks of the Mississippi), traveled by train, played day baseball and wore heavy woolen uniforms even during the dead of a hot, humid summer.

The NL is the only organized league in the world that doesn't utilize the DH in some shape or form. Little Leagues, prep leagues, colleges, foreign leagues and even the Minor Leagues play with the DH.

Just because everyone does it does not make it better baseball. In fact, the Little Leagues "version of the DH" is typically that ALL kids bat regardless of if they are fielding a position. That is so that all kids get to hit. The other leagues use the DH mostly to provide extra "protection" for the pitcher and allow more specialization (pitchers then do not ever have to pick up a bat...how contrary to baseball's spirit is that?).

One can argue until the throat is hoarse that the NL has the right idea. That we should return to those days when Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Whitey Ford and Denny McLain all picked up their sticks and went up to hit in the AL like real men.

You forgot Babe Ruth. He was a pitcher, too.

When historians ultimately review this baseball era, Selig may indeed go down as Major League Baseball's boldest Commissioner.

Yeah, boldness combined with complete ineptitude in labor relations, and many finances...oh yeah, in trying to eliminate the Twins from existance.

In a sport that was glacier-like when it came to change, Selig will have overseen the Major Leagues splitting from four to six divisions. At the same time, a Wild Card playoff berth was authored in both leagues, thus creating eight postseason slots where there once had been four.

Six divisions I like. The Wild Card made for bad baseball. He should have taken Bob Costas' advice and give the top-seeded team a first round bye. Then the race in September would be for everyone to try for first. With the Wild Card the #1 team coasts, often so does the #2 team. That makes for bad baseball. The real race in September is for 4th place. Yuck. What an exciting race that is.

He'll be able to boast about the advent next year of the World Baseball Classic, the first time Major League players will be participating in an international event.

A good idea that will quickly diminish in quality as the top players will opt out of playing...just like the US Olympic basketball and US Olympic baseball teams.

And of course, there's Interleague Play, a concept first discussed in the 1940s by Bill Veeck, the Hall-of-Fame owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox who was way ahead of his time.
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"Obviously, the fans love it," Tigers manager Alan Trammell said. "And actually, I look forward to it if they do make the switch so that next year in AL parks we can play NL style."

So even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then. The DH is a bad rule and I hope that Selig's Interleague Rule tweak will let people in the AL home cities see first hand the extra dimensions that are entered into the games individually and over the course of a series.

Then we can get rid of the DH once and for all. Pa-tooey.