Hey Hank - Better idea... how about we put up batting cage screens in front of the pitcher too! I mean, falling off that mound and fielding a bunt could be tragic.

When Hank stops smoking 5 packs of cigs a day, then maybe we'll consider his health conscious ramblings.

I've been a baseball fan dating back to the early l930's. I've witnessed both sides of this argument in person and always felt the DH was an exciting improvement in the game. Why it wasn't adopted by the NL has always been a puzzle to me. It isn't too late I'd like to see both leagues come together on this issue because it'll further enhance the game.

What makes the least sense is having pitchers who aren't used to batting or running the bases do it a few times a year. If not for the DH, Wang would probably be better at those tasks and less likely to hurt himself through clumsiness.

Yeah...the point that Hank seems to be tripping over, while being right at the same time, is not that there should be a DH or Shouldn't be a DH, but that pitchers who aren't used to hitting shouldn't have to hit at all. That's where the problem lies, and that's where the danger is. Even though most NL pitchers are pretty lousy hitters, at least they practice it all season, so they're used to everything that comes with it.

The whole thing reminds me of that great Mitch Hedberg joke:

"When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?""

How many pitchers get hurt running the bases each year? Steve H. has a good point, but come on, this is a non-issue. Any time a professional athlete gets hurt by simply running, it is a fluke, not a cause for changing the rules.

I think we should institute more designated positions into the sport. In addition to Designated Hitters, we could have Designated Fielders. We could have Designated Guitar Heroes. We could have Designated Deer Carcass Carriers. The list goes on.

I started watching baseball in 1985 and my team is the Red Sox, so I have a preference for the DH. There is nothing I hate more than watching pitchers hit. I find sacrifice bunts incredibly boring - especially when there is 1 out.

I also hate that is can be so easy to pitch around the bottom of the order in the NL. If an NL team has a weak 8 hitter, it can be way too easy for a pitcher to get around trouble.

Maybe it's just because the DH is what I know, but I have never understood the problem people have with it.

Yeah, Steve H. is right about Wang, I think (but Mike is too), but I like the two leagues having different rules. With interleague play, the AL and the NL would be just one league with two divisions were it not for the DH rule. I like the separateness. Also, fans who prefer the strategy and 'purity' can watch the NL, and fans who think watching a pitcher bat is like watching a punter try to tackle can watch the AL.

It's like the AFC and NFC had rules stating that in AFC Quarterbacks had to kick while NFC teams could use a kicker...

I think the bigger question is WHY INTERLEAGUE PLAY?!?!?!?!?!?!? While I think the pitcher batting is a wasted at bat I still feel that Interleague play is a terrible idea! Please KC vs ARI, who cares!

I propose limiting Interleague play, if we have to have it at all, to Two series. A three game series leading into the All-Star Break and the first three game series after the all-star break. You want it to be something special then make it something special. Now it is just randomly placed in the year with mostly random match-ups.

Plus the beauty of League play when I was growing up was the dream match-ups of my favorite AL and NL teams in the World Series and the thrill of it actually happening for all the marbles, and how those teams adjusted to playing them for the first time. You look back at the battles in NY, Giants v Yankees or Brooklyn v Yankees in those classic World Series and how those teams and fans charged up for those meetings.

Imagine INterleague play back then. Where's the match-up excitement when those teams had already faced each other 6 times already this season?

BAN INTERLEAGUE PLAY!!!!!

I would try to avoid taking seriously anything that comes out of Hank's mouth. Even in the locker room, he's probably the dumbest guy in the room. Just because he is also the wealthiest and most powerful doesn't mean he should be taken seriously for the content of his opinions.

Although, as someone who roots against the Yankees, his frequent and loud brand of stupidity is fairly entertaining.

Having pitchers get hurt running the bases or batting is a risk of interleague play and also spring training. I don't think stopping interleague play is going to happen and I don't think this is a good reason for it to stop. I agree with Tom that watching a lot of innings get killed because there's an automatic out in them is pretty boring. It's also kind of strange that since the DH started the AL has dominated the NL. I attribute this to the added competitiveness of being able to and having to stack your lineup to compete.

"Although, as someone who roots against the Yankees, his frequent and loud brand of stupidity is fairly entertaining."

Exactly how I feel. It's like a WFAN caller owns the team now.

Hey, not just pitchers get hurt running the bases. Teams invest millions of dollars in their position players, too. Why don't we have designated runners for all the batters? David Wright swings at a pitch to put the ball in play and some track star, standing in the empty batters box, takes off for first.

In fact, guys could get hurt fielding the ball, so we should have Designated Fielders, too. Team defense would improve by leaps and bounds, and all those all-glove, no-bat AAA-players can get to the major leagues. On the other hand, why should I risk injury to my Designated Shortstop? Let's just agree that anything hit into a certain area is an out. Actually, we should do that for every position.

In fact, I see no reason to have players in the field at all. We can just simulate all of the games on a computer. The whole season could be played in a few minutes -- think of the time we'll save!

DH arguments are fun because they're so predictable. But give Bill James credit. He actually came up with a new twist on the ancient DH disputes in his Historical Abstract.

James argued, very cleverly, that the DH rule actually increases real strategy in the game. He used math to bolster his case, of course, by showing that the standard deviation in the number of sacrifice bunts was much greater in the AL than the NL.

Okay, sorry for the bit of Mr. Spock talk. What this means is English is that AL teams show much more variety in how they use the sacrifice than NL teams.

Which makes sense. Let's face it, the Owingses (is that a word?) and Zambranos of the world are wild exceptions. Almost all pitchers hit like something which rhymes with hit. So the hurlers are obviously forced to sac-bunt in, well, those obvious bunting situations.

With a hitter up there in the nine-hole, you actually have a lot more choices in those situations. In other words, you have to use a lot more real strategy to determine what to do at some pretty crucial points in the game.

Others besides James have made the related point that an AL manager must make pitching changes based on a true evaluation of the pitcher, not because he was, again, obviously forced to pinch-hit for the hurler.

The basic point is that the DH eliminates a lot of forced, obvious moves that are wrongly called "strategy." Instead, the manager must use more real strategy because he has so many more options at his disposal.

Now I will give this to the anti-DH crowd: the lack of the rule increases HUMOR in the game. Last night I watched Bartolo Colon swing so hard and clumsily that his helmet flew off and spun picturesqely in the batter's box.

It honestly was the funniest thing I've seen on the diamond in a long time.

Just one thing: the hefty Colon hurt himself a little on that - I have to say it - hilarious swing. I don't want to sound like I'm laughing over his injury, which doesn't appear to be serious, anyway.

Still, the mighty swipe was a great moment in baseball history. Funny thing, Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels is fairly competent at the plate and took much better swings, going 1-for-3.

Baseball- a team sport consisting of 9 players playing defense and offense. The beauty of the game is each player competing on both offense and defense. The DH rule corrupts the game allowing a teamto place an offensive player with weak defensive skills in the lineup without suffering the defensive consequences.

I'm an AL fan (Indians) who nonetheless is not a fan of the DH. I've got to call Steinbrenner an idiot on this one. Athletes get injured. Pitchers do more running than most position players as they need strong legs to pitch. It was a freak thing that his guy (Wang) got injured. Pitchers are way more likely to get injured running over to first on a ball fielded by the first baseman then by running the bases. Growing up the pitchers and shortstops are the two best athletes on the field. Most pitchers were decent hitters. They lose their sharpness by not using those skills.

What of the things that distinguishes baseball in general, and the National League in particular, from the rest of American sport is that it is not a specialist's game. Or, it is but only up to a point. The very best players are not those who can just hit (or pitch), or just field, or just run the bases - but those who can do all of the above.

The slope towards greater specialisation is a slippery one, and one that comes from a flawed vision of the game. Sorry AL and DH fans, but as a non-American who only started watching baseball 5 years ago, I find the National League games to be the more compelling, at least in part because of the fact that the pitchers can contribute with the bat to their own victory or defeat.

Finally, there is absolutely no reason why the majority of pitchers have to hit as poorly as they do. While they will never be as proficient as genuine hitters - if they were they would almost certainly be converted like Ruth was - the very fact that one of the greatest hitters of the game entered it as a pitcher blows away the idea that pitchers can't hit. What really impedes them is the cultural stereotype of the clueless hitter. No one expects them to be able to do diddly-squat, so they don't. But I know they could do better.

How? Cricket. Pitching and bowling are kindred arts, just as the two games are cousins, very close cousins despite the aspersions each sometimes flings at the other. You have players who specialise in bowling of course, and there will always be a few bowlers (and pitchers) who will never amount to much. But there are also those bowlers who can put in a useful knock. Nothing to rival the premier batters, but enough to change the course of a game. And the culture in cricket is to teach, encourage, and nurture a bowler to be able to make that contribution.

Attitudes in baseball are different. It is a lazy attitude. As lazy and precious an attitude as the one that fails to realise that when athlets play and train they will get injured.

You're not required to swing the bat. Plenty of guys get up there and just sit the bat on their shoulder. And if you happen to have an Owings, a Zambrano, or even a Glavine/Wakefield (who can hit decently and not hurt themselves), you get an advantage over a Wang or Colon, who is incapable of batting without suffering injury. No one forced the Yanks to start Wang, no one forced him to swing, and no one forced him to run the bases for himself instead of a pinch runner.

"You have players who specialise in bowling of course, and there will always be a few bowlers (and pitchers) who will never amount to much."

Yeah, like most bowlers, when it comes to batting. Okay, there are allrounders who can bat and bowl. But most specialist bowlers tend towards the Glenn McGrath school of hopeless batting, just as most pitchers tend towards the Bartolo Colon school of hopeless hitting. That's why the bowlers usually congregate in the eight-through-eleven slots in the batting order.

I'm a little apologetic about my snickers at Colon's batting last night, because he's gone on the DL. But if pitchers are so helpless that they can't swing the bat a few times without getting hurt, send out the clowns and send in the DH.

The Book Blog (www.insidethebook.com) points out that never having the #4 or #5 pitcher hit in the NL would increase runs per game by .3 on average. How absurd is that? The pitcher shouldn't bat even if it is the NL, because it hurts their chances to win.

The pitcher hitting made sense a long time ago when there was a far smaller pool of talent, and less variation between players in the majors when it came to pitching/hitting. We don't expect a second baseman to pitch, so why should we expect a pitcher to hit?

For those of you who are in favor of banning the DH, are you also in favor of banning the double-switch? After all, if the pitcher should also be a hitter, why should managers be allowed to swap around their players to delay the pitcher coming to bat?