Well, if we want jobs for old sluggers and more offense, here’s what we do.
Get rid of the old, soggy two-way player idea. After all, football has pretty much done away with it, and look at the NFL’s success!
This would improve fielding, too! You could have that long-legged, fleet-footed .180 punch and judy hitter playing center field, now. There’d never be a need to pinch-hit for Steve Yeager style catchers, because the only time he’d be near a plate would be when he was behind it!
Why, you could get by with four starting batters, one for each base (including home). You could have some fast guys to pinch -run (free substitution of players). You could also pull the slugger for the average RBI man when the situation called for it.
The end result? MORE hits, MORE base stealing, BETTER fielding. If you think of baseball strictly in terms of hitting, running, pitching and fielding, all but pitching would be improved. No, with free substitution, even pitching could be improved.
That is the logical conclusion of this mentality.
Speaking for myself, I dropped MLB baseball when they added wildcards and interleague play. I will still have the ‘77-78’ Dodgers, the ‘81 Dodgers, and the ‘88 Dodgers to look back on. That’ll have to do. I didn’t care about the strike or the steroid stuff at all. They lost me before that.
When do the Congressional hearings start?
I stopped watching baseball when hitters started stepping out of the box after every pitch. The game has slowed to a crawl and is unwatchable.
Hurrah for the Designated hitter rule!
I hate the DH and can’t stand that my Houston Astros were forced against their will to move to the American League.
And for everyone who wants to blather about how dull baseball is with pitcher hitting and how much more exciting it is with the DH, check the current MLB attendance figures:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance
The American League has six of the bottom seven teams in attendance and when they get the Astros next year, it will be seven of the bottom seven.
Even with a 106-loss team last year, the Astros averaged 3,000 more fans per game and finished 19th among the 30 MLB clubs. This year, they’re 26th despite a better winning percentage.
Of course, we knew even last year what a farce the commissioner and the union were leading up to - universal DH so more fat slobs like David Ortiz could pay bigger union dues even though they can’t catch a cold.
The Nationals’ pitchers this year have made a number of timely RBI base hits. By way of example, Strasburg has hit 4 doubles and a home run, averaging .348. Designated hitter is lame.
I quit watching baseball in 1950 when the Southeastern League went belly up.
MLB hasn’t been fun for a long, long time.