Spring Training is in progress and the first pitch of the baseball season is only a month away. It is time to address an evil that goes on in America’s National League ballparks every day of the baseball season.
Pitchers bat! (That is not a misprint. They actually make pitchers pretend to bat in the National League.)
Ridiculous!
Some people were created with the ability to hit a baseball and some with the ability to hurl it. We don’t ask Alex Rodriquez to pitch, why do we expect CC Sabathia to bat during interleague play? It is a violation of nature.
Sure, there is an exception to the rule that comes along every century or so. But when a pitcher like Babe Ruth realizes his can knock the cover off the ball, an American League team has the sense to turn him into an everyday player. ‘
When I was young, the more talented and intelligent American League conformed to nature and justice and instituted something called the designated hitter rule. When the pitcher was supposed to come to the plate and embarrass his family with his feeble swings, they instead sent someone to the plate who knew which end of the bat to hold.
I’m not sure whether the American League is superior because it has the DH or if the superiority of the American League is what caused it to adopt the DH. Chicken meet egg. But there is one unassailable fact – American League baseball is better.
- It is better because all nine hitters in the batting order have an actual chance to make contact with the ball.
- It is better because pitchers don’t get to take a break every ninth hitter. They actually have to throw big league pitches to all nine batters.
- It is better because teams don’t have to find a place in the defensive alignment for players who shouldn’t even own a baseball glove. The AL just lets them hit in the place of the pitcher – joy for all.
- It is better because it does not have sappy sentimentalists talking about the glories of baseball past before the American League had the good sense to institute the DH.
It is time, folks, for Americans to rise up and demand an end to the travesty that is National League Baseball. Write your congressman. Demand action. Pitchers can’t hit and it is an embarrassment when they try! Demand that the designated hitter become the rule in all of Major League Baseball.
An evil such as this can only prevail if good men say nothing! I suggest everyone interested in change to put the message on a custom 7 on 7 football jerseys click here, and wear it to all the games you go to.
