Pardon my boldness in this, my rookie attempt at writing for the B/R, but I genuinely believe that what you're about to read in this column is a potent rationale to reconcile the divide and to end decades of a truly bizarre era of major league baseball: an era in which a very significant rule was allowed to stay on the books that clearly divided the leagues in a fundamental way that no other professional sports league has ever permitted.
Pardon me, too, as I write from the perspective of a National League fan; but in the end, you'll see, it really doesn't matter so much. Here we go.
Premise No. 1 is that the designated hitter has, like it or not, become part of the fabric of the modern baseball game.
For almost 40 years now, proponents of the designated hitter rule have hoped that us DH antagonists would give in.
For almost 40 years now, us DH antagonists have hoped that DH proponents would see the heresy of their ways, see the DH gimmick for what it is, and that the MLB gods would restore the game to be authentic to its roots.
Well. We aren't giving in. And, they aren't seeing it. And, the horse is out of the barn, miles down the road, as millions of baseball fans now do not even remember when both leagues played by the exact same rules.
Premise No. 2 is that there is an incongruity in the modern baseball game that empirically disqualifies its championship series as a scientifically-valid experiment yielding "the best" team since both sides do not construct their rosters to play by precisely the same rules.
We do and should care about the grand old game, the national pastime, baseball... being consistent, being logical, and offering a championship between two teams annually who have both been subject to ALL of the same rules.
It is not okay to just accept this and allow inconsistency, an absence of logic, and a skewed championship series to continue.
If, next season, the NFL were to enact a rule that allowed, say, right tackles to be pass-eligible under the premise that the league wanted more scoring, would you be comfortable with that? Probably not, but maybe so.
The kicker (no pun intended), though, is this:
Would you be okay with it if the AFC teams wanted the rule, the NFC teams didn't want the rule, and if Goodell and the rules committee said, "Okay, let's just let each conference choose for themselves whether they want to play under that rule or not."...???
To the contrary. The vast majority would voice VERY LOUDLY that those guys are fools to think that that would fly, and that NFL fans would not be universally angry that one stupid idea (right tackle eligible) had been compounded by endorsing an EVEN "STUPID-ER" one (one conference has the rule, the other doesn't).
Indeed, many of us would be writing letters to Goodell saying, "SURELY you don't want this to become like major league baseball and the DH, do you?"
Does a pragmatic middle exist? I'm persuaded that, in a world where every day civilized intelligent people solve disagreements and negotiate win-win contracts, there just has to be. (We just haven't tried that hard because, again, for the last 40 years, both sides thought the other was going to givein.) And that is premise No. 3.
Boiling this all down to what seem to be the core issues for the stakeholders...
- The pro-DH side wants the DH to remain because they like offense: that was the original intent and it remains the central purpose. And of course, from their perspective, the players union also likes the DH because it tends to extend careers for a few players.
- Many on the anti-DH side simply want to return to what they consider to be the "traditional" game, sans-DH. But as said earlier, a large segment of the population does not even remember a time when there wasn't a DH rule. Therefore, time has seriously eroded the concept of a "traditional" game by virtue of the fact that the current game in its split-format state IS what many know as the "traditional" game...
- Thus...the more relevant and salient issue for the anti-DH group is the contention that the strategic aspect of the game has been compromised by the DH in its current form.
Are anti-DH fans repulsed by offense? No. Are pro-DH fans repulsed by strategy? No.
Therefore, I contend that this is mostly a matter of finding that right balance such that both can be satisfied that the game is well-served by whatever solution is identified.
And that solution must not only meet those two criteria (retain the offensive spark of the AL's DH rule while retaining the strategic element of the NL's lack of one), but also must not seem to be one that is convoluted or complicated.
Having had a number of dialogues with fans on various internet sites over the last five-or-so years, what have I come up with that meets those critiera?
Well, to-date, I'd say that one of the best ones was/is to simply go with what the MLB has ordained for spring training, that home team managers be allowed to decide prior to a given game whether it was their discretion to play the game with the DH or without.
This would mean that every GM has to construct their team for the 162-game season anticipating that on any given day or night they would have the DH for some games and not for others; and thus, that would even the playing field.
I still think that's reasonable, but I can't say that it's captured anyone's imagination quite like an in-game rule change would do.
More recently, I came upon an idea from former manager Tom Trebelhorn that was intriguing, but not without a major flaw or two. As I recall, he put forward this idea of a "super" pinch hitter who could bat for anyone on three different occasions through the line-up three separate times.
However, even though that would create a lot of interesting situations in a game, the number three seemed rather arbitrary, and thus the execution of it seemed rather convoluted as a result.
Still, there was a part of the idea that stuck with me as being worthy of extended thought--i.e., what is maddening about the DH is less that you have a substitute hitter, but more that the hitter ALWAYS bats for the pitcher, thus totally removing the necessity for that player--no, make that, ANY player at that ONE position--to EVER bat.... and if you could make it so that the manager could, or better, HAD to use the substitute at different points in the order, that would remedy what is, to me, the most legitimate criticism of the DH rule.
So then... it came to me literally just this weekend, if you could modify it so that there was some rational order to where in the line-up the DH had to be used, there might just be a solution that a consensus of informed fans could rally around... to wit,, I'd like to introduce you to...and ask you to help trouble-shoot and/or improve the concept of...the DESCENDING DESIGNATED HITTER .
Here's the essence of the "descending designated hitter (DDH) rule"... insofar as I've thought about it so far, and in all its simplicity...
In contrast to the current rule in which the designated hitter bats for one position throughout the game, the DDH would "descend" through the batting order, acting as the hitting substitute initially for, say, the 7th player in the order the first time through the line-up, then substituting for the 8th player the next time, then the 9th, and so on.
Effectively, once the DDH bats for the first time, they bat again ten (9+1) slots later. On each occasion, the manager would have the option of batting either the DDH or the regularly scheduled hitter without any consequence to the availability of the same DDH the next time through the order.
As I'm currently thinking about it...which means I'm not really sure I've evaluated all of the nuances, so please feel welcome to step up to the plate and help in that regard...the DDH option would be taken away from a manager only (a) once that player is removed from the game for any reason (injury or pinch hitter) or (b) once that player goes to the field to play defense.
No one can replace the person named on the line-up card handed to the ump at the beginning of the game.
Outcome of all of this?
It's my opinion that pro-DH fans can be satisfied because the DDH continues to bat in place of weaker hitters, just not always the pitcher. As to the players' union, there's no substantive change here, so it's not clear why they would have any objection (though, you never know, do you).
By the same token, anti-DH fans can be satisfied that the DDH poses a plethora of strategic questions for managers to manage: (1) obviously, the pitcher under this scenario will have to pick up a bat... (2) the manager now must carefully consider the place in the line-up they want to insert the DDH the first time... (3) each time through the line-up, the manager must make a judgment of whether to bat the DDH or to bat the player scheduled for that line-up slot... and (4) the manager in the defensive dugout must also make decisions based on their anticipation as to whether the other team's manager will opt for the DDH or the regular slotted batter.
And finally, it's my opinion that there would be "joy in Mudville" again... for, we will have gained a re-unified rulebook, and thus a game where ALL teams' rosters are constructed and where all teams play by a SINGLE standard.
As always intrigued to know if this passes the smell test with you... could it work?
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