Trending
Universal DH? Oh, say it ain't so, Joe!
To the editor:
As the world watched aghast at Ukrainian buildings crumbling in the crosshairs of Russian missiles, a pillar of American civilization crumbled silently here at home. Nary a shot was fired nor bomb dropped, but when the dust cleared, the national pastime was damaged irreparably as Major League Baseball announced its "universal designated hitter" rule for the upcoming 2022 season. The insidious cancer ushered into baseball by the American League (aptly known as the "Junior Circuit," for its childish, tempestuous behavior) 50 years ago has now metastasized and infected the "Senior Circuit." Say it aint so, Joe!
The professional team sports that amuse us also reflect our societal norms, values, and quirks. The designated hitter is, arguably, the remedy for a much-too-slow game that suffers from inadequate hitting and run production. Well. The problem is not that baseball is too slow with long scoring droughts. The problem is that our national attention span is too short as the Sesame Street generation comes of age, television sitcoms achieve crisis resolution within 30 minutes, and news media breathlessly flit from superficial reporting on one breaking story to the next. Why should the national pastime be immune from the vagaries of our short national attention span?
The genius of Doubleday's (I know, I know, Abner didn't really invent the game, but it's a pleasant myth) perfect game is its transcendent ability to pull us upward and away from our ordinary human tendencies. Like a hard slider that cuts against the grain and breaks at our knees, the game cuts against our impulsive, I-want-it-all-now nature. Nine innings of carefully planned pitches, balls, strikes, foul balls, and outs force us to slow down, reflect and contemplate.
Ah, but that makes the game slow -- excruciatingly slow for our fast-paced lives. Slow? Tell that to the batter who must make a split-second decision to swing or duck as a 97 mph fastball bears down on him! Surely the most difficult feat in all of organized sport is hitting a round ball with a round bat, with a fraction of a second to figure out how to do it.
With no clock to watch or manipulate through foolish football spikings or intentional basketball fouling, baseball suspends time and places us in an other-worldly dimension of delight and uncertainty. Theoretically, a baseball game could be over in 27 consecutive outs or go on forever, and that is a delicious possibility. George Will astutely notes: "Baseball is a habit. The slowly rising crescendo of each game, the rhythm of the long season -- these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions can that be said?" But good habits are difficult to acquire and even more difficult to maintain over time. The habit of baseball -- at least in the National League -- provides a traditional respite from a changing world.
But now the Senior Circuit is hellbent on repeating the folly of its impulsive younger brother by changing the game that needs no change. Baseball is the queen of sport and should not stoop to our base human desires; we should instead allow ourselves to be elevated to its time-honored traditions and values. In no other team sport is the ratio of skill to action higher. The complete baseball player must be able to hit, field, throw, bunt, and run bases -- and that's just the physical part. As Yogi Berra famously quipped, "Baseball is ninety percent mental, and the other half is physical." To play the game well, there's a whole lot of thinking going on in the head of each player.
Well, that is if you are really a complete baseball player in the field and at the plate and not simply a mercenary hitter, a hired bat who comes off the bench once every nine at-bats to swing at a few pitches to give run-starved fans something to grab their attention.
Over the last century or so, societal evolution has wrought increasing specialization. Rare today is the craftsman who oversees a fine piece of work from start to finish. More common is the assembly line worker who specializes in one small piece of the finished product. Good baseball players are yesterday's craftsmen, the "Renaissance Men" of sport, for they need to be good at a lot of things, both in the field and at the plate. Admittedly, baseball has been slowly drifting toward increasing specialization. Witness the odd modern phenomenon of the "closer," who comes in to pitch one inning (sometimes even one out) and the "set-up guy" who comes in to pitch a one or two-inning prelude to the "closer."
Steve Carlton, of Philadelphia Phillies fame, started 499 games in his career and completed 185 of them all by himself, with no need for a specialized set-up guy or closer. During 12 seasons with the New York Mets, Tom Seaver (aka "Tom Terrific") pitched 171 complete games. The numbers posted by the likes of Carlton and Seaver are unheard of in today's specialized world of baseball and, sadly, will never be replicated. And Steve Carlton was no slouch at the plate, slamming an impressive lifetime batting average of .268 in 112 plate appearances. A designated hitter for Carlton? Never! Watching a pitcher wallop a ball over the fence -- Carlton did it 13 times -- now that's something for short-attention-span fans to cheer about.
Bill Mazeroski, a superlative second baseman but mediocre .260 hitter with only 138 home runs spread over 17 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, jacked a 1-0 pitch from Ralph Terry over Yogi Berra's head and the ivy-laced left-field wall of Forbes Field in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven to snatch the 1960 World Series from the mighty and highly favored New York Yankees. Maz at the plate was an unlikely hero, but often in real life, ordinary people step up to the plate to achieve extraordinary greatness when opportunities arise. We may never know what weak or average hitters -- or people -- can accomplish if hitters are always designated for them. And how much more satisfying and exciting to be surprised by an unexpected walk-off World Series win than to watch a hired slugger do it?
Now that the National League has succumbed to the designated hitter, what is to prevent further specialization? Why not select the next weakest hitter and designate a hitter for him? And the next and the next? Why not field the nine best defensive players and then bring up the nine best hitters waiting on the bench to bat for them -- a completely different offense and defense? The camel's nose is under the tent. Abner Doubleday is turning over in his grave. Where will it all end?
A dark designated-hitter cloud has descended over baseball. Civilization as we know it is crumbling before our eyes. Say it aint so, Joe! Say it aint so!
Kevin Zook
Lewistown