IT’S DEBATEABLE

The designated hitter rule is the common name for Rule 6.10, used by the American League since 1973 that allows teams to designate an alternate player, known as the designated hitter to bat in place of a pitcher each time he comes to bat, rather than replace the pitcher with a pinch hitter.

I hate the rule, it watered down the game of baseball and all that it used to be. It makes the record books only half meaningful since the National League never employed the rule. The American League can’t really start its history until 1973, while the National League can go all the way back to the original games!

One of the beauties of baseball is the past, and the records that have been established over the years. People can spend the off season debating because there are comparisions that make for interesting conversation, and althought this may be true for other sports, not as it occurs in baseball.

But it is the actual game itself that is watered down, the strategies that ensue when a team reaches the late innings, the pitcher is pitching a credible game and the score is tied. Do you take the pitcher out and use a pinch hitter, or do you leave him in and chances are kill the rally?

Every time you mess with the purity of the game, you cheapen the product, take away some tradition and ruin it for the fans. The argument is that it brings more punch to the game to have a designated hitter, more scoring means more excitement and therefore a better game.

If you are a purist like I am, you know that all it does is take away from the order of business in executing a game of baseball. That baseball is a game meant to be played by 9 players on a side, that is the symetry of the game, that leaves it in perfect balance. Nine men on the field verses nine men coming to the plate, each representing his repective positoon on the field. It is not happening in the American League.

Who is the best hitting second baseman of all time? Whis the best fielding second baseman of all time? Who is the best hitting and fielding second baseman of all time? You can make that last question nine times for the National League, not the American League.

That’s all I wrote, folks!