The Designated Hitter
Well, it’s World Series time again, which means it’s one of the two times every year when people start to debate the merits of the designated hitter in baseball. The first time is during interleague play in the regular season, but when the World Series rolls around is when people really get into it. See, some people believe that having a DH provides a major advantage to the American League team. Still, others say that the DH is, in fact, a disadvantage to the American League team because when they play in the National League park, one of their major cogs will be unable to play and the pitchers will be forced to bat, which they haven’t done much of all year.
There are people who say the DH is bad for the game and should be done away with completely. There is also a segment of the baseball-supporting population which believes that the National League should adopt the DH to level the playing field - and who really wants to see pitchers hitting anyway? Traditionalists will say that the very idea of introducing the DH into the National League is blasphemous to the sacred game of baseball. You know what I have to say? Who cares.
The arguments about the designated hitter are WAY overblown. Frankly, I couldn’t care less if either, both, or neither league uses it. The idea that the DH (or lack thereof) provides some major advantage (or disadvantage) to either league is ridiculous. The AL has dominated the NL in recent years in both the World Series and the All-Star Game. Is it because it’s a league full of designated hitters? NO! It’s because there are, in general, better players, managers, teams and markets in the American League. It has nothing to do with the DH. Nothing needs to be done with the DH, but if something IS done, nobody should care because it is insignificant. The problem is that the ESPNs of the world have stereotyped the AL as being a league of Lou Gehrigs who pitch like Jose Lima, and the NL as being a bunch of Christy Mathewsons who hit like Rafael Belliard. The reality is that the AL has both better hitting AND better pitching. The AL has the Yankees and Red Sox. The NL has a lot of teams with great tradition, but very poor records over the past decade or two, like the Pirates, Reds, Phillies and Cubs (past century or two in their case). I can’t explain this, but I know it’s not the DH’s fault. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that there’s no salary cap. Maybe it’s because the national media has an AL bias and pays off the umpires to call every interleague game in their favor. Maybe it’s because the AL found out about steroids first and decided to keep them to themselves and not tell the NL. Whatever it is, it’s not the DH.