Joe Posnanski wants to keep the current designated hitter rules, used in the American league, unused in the National League:
The AL and NL have been eliminating their differences for years. They started to play each other in interleague play. They started using the same umpires. Players started moving more freely from one league to another. Next year, interleague play will go on all season, and thus will become even less special. I’m not saying that these are good or bad trends, they just are trends. And so the leagues have mostly lost their identities; baseball in many ways has merged into one 30-team league.
BUT, there’s the DH. And as long as there’s the DH in the AL and not in the NL, the two leagues are not alike. As long as the DH separates the two leagues, there will be arguments, drama, complaints, bragging, strategy … and these are some of the things that give baseball life and flavor.
He makes a good case, as usual. The whole column is well worth the read.
Joe Posnanski is always a great read!!!
Fine, but what about the fact that interleague play exists, and NL teams are literally incapable of keeping a full-time DH on their roster because no first-rate player will voluntarily consent to be a part time DH/pinch-hitter just so his team can be competitive in interleague games (and perhaps the World Series)? JP is a national treasure, but waxing poetic about the joy of different systems in the two leagues doesn’t deal with the distortion being created by interleague play.