As the baseball strike reached 101 days Monday, it once again occurred to me it would be possible for each owner to save some dough, certainly in excess of $1 million a year, by abolishing the designated hitter. This would apply only in the American League, since in the National League the pitcher bats for himself.
Jerry Reinsdorf of the White Sox was asked if there has been any talk of dumping the DH.
“From time to time it’s come up,” Reinsdorf said. “A few years ago we had a secret ballot, but it was about 50-50, or slightly in favor of the DH. Anyway, if you wanted to eliminate it, you’d have to bargain with the players association.”
So that ends that.
The players aren’t likely to yield. They prefer the DH because, on an average, the DH is pulling down $1.5 million a year. A few of them are in the $3 million bracket.
“I didn’t like it when it came into existence,” Reinsdorf said. “But we’ve had it for 20 years and so I don’t feel any burning desire to get rid of it.”
My sentiments exactly.
When it was adopted before the 1973 season, I was opposed because I was convinced it would be the beginning of two-platoon baseball. A couple of years down the line, in a further effort to fuel the offense, there would be a DH for the shortstop; and later, for the center-fielder, and so on.
But that hasn’t happened. The delicate balance between the offense and defense, absolutely crucial, has not been significantly disturbed. The heavy-hitting, slow-footed outfielder, a constant liability on defense, must carry a glove and is still chasing the ball in the left-field corner. It’s among the charms of the game. Only the pitchers have suffered. They no longer have any easy outs. Confronted by the DH, the AL pitcher has four tougher at-bats. Yet-and this has surprised me, too-in the last 10 years, from 1985 through last season, AL pitchers have thrown 15 no-hitters, two more than in the NL.
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Roger Clemens, the Boston Rocket, holds the single-game strikeout record, 20 Ks in an early-season 1986 game against the Seattle Mariners. There is no question Clemens had the advantage of pitching against a weak-hitting team, but this was more than offset by the threatening presence of Gorman Thomas, a former AL home run king who was the Mariners’ DH. Thomas had three at-bats. He struck out only once.
An aggregate career batting average for pitchers is not yet available. But with few exceptions such as Kenny Holtzman and Tony Cloninger, who hit two grand slams in one game, pitchers are notoriously weak hitters. Bob Buhl, who toiled for the Cubs, was 0 for 70 in 1962, the major-league record for futility. Bill Wight, when he was pitching for the White Sox in 1950, was hitless in 61 trips.
Joey Hamilton of the San Diego Padres, a rookie right-hander, is the latest of a long line of anemic-hitting pitchers. He was a sure out last season-0 for 40, with 25 strikeouts. Poor Joey just as well could have gone to the plate with a lollipop.
The DH was officially introduced in 1973. But it was not a new idea. This is from the 1929 Reach Guide:
“John Heydler, president of the National League, wants to modify the rules so that the manager has the option to select a pinch-hitter before the game and permit him to bat for his pitcher. In other words, a manager could keep a weak-hitting pitcher, or pitchers, from ever batting if he so elects.
“President Heydler’s suggestion provoked wide discussion among base ball men, but neither league took any definite action about it. Mr. Heydler’s ideas were put forth as a feeler more than anything else and it is believed that the owners will be asked to consider the suggestion again next winter.”
The AL adopted the DH 44 years later. I was covering the White Sox at the time and remember Richie Allen and Hank Aaron discussing the new rule at the batting cage before an exhibition game. At the time, they were baseball’s highest-salaried players. Allen was No. 1 at $225,000, Aaron next at $200,000.
“It will ruin the game,” predicted Allen, who the previous season had broken the all-time White Sox home run record and been named the AL’s Most Valuable Player.
Aaron agreed. “When I can’t play in the regular lineup, I’ll quit,” Aaron insisted. “I’m not going to hang around as a pinch-hitter.”
Aaron, of course, hung around. They all do. Aaron appeared in 202 games as a DH. Scores of aging and injured players have similarly benefited. Hal McRae, recently dismissed as the manager of the Kansas City Royals, prolonged his career for more than a decade because of the DH rule.
Many statisticians have insisted the effect of the DH has been minimal. A 1986 study, compiled after the first 13 years, revealed that the aggregate AL batting average had been only six-thousandths of 1 percent higher than the NL in the same period.
But batting averages are not good criteria. Most designated hitters have not been high-average hitters. They are essentially fading power hitters, RBI men, who because of their experience are best in the clutch. The better way to measure the difference is in runs. Last season, the AL outscored the NL an average of 1.2 runs per game.