Marco's blog-o-roonie DH

MARCO'S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE: THE DH AND ALL ITS' ZOMBIE CHILDREN

Say hello to Tony Cloninger, who should be the patron saint of all opponents of the infamous DH rule.

On July 3 1966, playing for the Milwaukee Bravos in a game against the San Francisco Gigantes, Tony hit two grand slams in one game....becoming the first NL player ever to do that and the first and only pitcher ever. He also had 9 ribbies that day which is still the all-time record for a pitcher.

Who needs a DH? And what happened to pitchers who could hit? Our story thus-far...(the severely abbreviated version):

Back at the dawn of time, rosters were small and pitchers had to play positions when they weren't on the mound. They hit as much as the other position players. Then somebody realized that pitchers really got tired arms from pitching every day back in 1880 and they needed rest once in awhile. So the pitchers would get a day off after pitching complete 14 inning games.

Of course back then nobody could hit for power. The ball was dead and the pitchers could save up their good stuff for the really dangerous hitters and just lob the ball to all the 5 foot 2 leprechauns they had playing back then. They were probably trying to bunt anyway.

Then in 1920 things changed. That's the year Carl Mays killed Ray Chapman with a spitball to the head. There was great outrage at this “baseball murder”. A lot of people said that the problem was that Ray never saw the dirty black ball that had been in use for the whole game (like most games then) and was smeared with dirt and tobacco juice from all the ball alteration that regularly went on. So the Lords of Baseball passed new rules to keep clean baseballs in play.

They also banned the spitball (excepting a grandfather clause for active pitchers like Burleigh Grimes who made their pitching living off spitballs. Another reason for the ban was health concerns after the flu epidemic of 1918.)

The Lords also wanted to clean up baseball's image after the Black Sox Scandal that year.

The unexpected results of the fresher balls were that they were livelier and people like Babe Ruth (54 taters) could hit the ball farther. People loved the long ball and attendance shot up. The Lords saw this and said “This is Good!” And you had the Roaring Twenties when hitting and hitting homers exploded. All of a sudden you had three or four guys on every team who could pound the apple into orbit.

Fans loved it. The leagues got greedy and doctored the ball for the 1930 season, resulting in whole teams batting over .300 (6 of 8 NL teams/43 of 64 regulars in the league batted over .300) The Phillies averaged more than 11 hits a game but gave up more than 13 with a team ERA of 6.71 and an average against of .343.

Baseball wisely un-doctored the baseball a little bit.

But pitching had to adjust. Pitchers couldn't pace themselves as much anymore...they had to bring their best stuff to more and more hitters. So they didn't last as long. Relief pitching was invented and pitchers got more off days. Days when they also were not hitting. Pitchers still hit, but the starters pitched only every fourth day so were only getting 6 or 7 at bats a week. That means less good hitting pitchers for lack of practice against live pitching.

The pitchers needed some help combating all these power hitters so somebody invented the slider. More and more fireballing relief pitchers. Then in the 50's and 60's the teams started moving out of the old urban ballparks and into bigger parks. Less homers. People stopped batting .380 every year. More nightball (harder to see the change-up and breaking pitch coming). Hitting went down some more.

Then in 1961 an anomaly: Expansion of the American League resulted in diluted pitching throughout the league. Maris and Mantle hit 61 and 54 homers respectively. Great numbers all over the league for hitters.

Ford Frick, baseball's commissioner, freaked out. He had been best buddies with Babe Ruth and didn't want the Babe's records obliterated. He put the asterisk next to Maris' name because Maris took 162 games to hit his homers while Ruth took only 154. Frick also started pushing to enlarge the strike zone. He even talked about bringing back the legal spitball!

In 1963 Frick got the zone changed from “top of the knees to the armpits” to “bottom of the knees to the shoulders”. This was a huge over-reaction to that one weird expansion season. At the same time, baseball stopped regulating the height of the mound and groundskeepers made them higher and higher. (Especially the Dodgers!) So in the 60's tall pitchers like Drysdale, Gibson, Sam McDowell, Bob Veale, and Jim Maloney throwing fastballs high in the zone just blew all the hitters away. By 1968 pitching totally dominated and they lowered the mounds and reduced the strike zone again.

But hitting didn't recover enough. Fans got sick of 2-1 games with no homers and started staying away in droves. The exploding popularity of NFL football made baseball look dull. The Lords of Baseball needed another gimmick.

Voila! The DH!

The AL (with less exciting players than the NL) started it in 1973. The NL decided to keep it traditional. Everybody chose sides.

Pitchers were never the same kind of hitters as the regulars, (Cloninger's lifetime average? .192) but they at least batted once in awhile. Now, instead of a good starter getting 6 or 7 at bats a week, a starter works every five days and comes out in the 6^th for a relief pitcher anyway. He probably gets 2 or 3 at bats a week max.

And all pitchers, AL or NL, don't hit at all as they work their way through the minor leagues! Every league...Little, Pony, Rookie and all Minor Leagues have the DH rule so they can get more work for the position players they are developing for the big clubs. (You still have a few pitchers who hit in college and maybe play another position once in awhile.) But most pitchers haven't faced live pitching in years by the time they make the majors. No wonder they can't hit! The AL pitchers only hit in interleague games and that's a total joke.

Last time I looked, only 17 NL pitchers were hitting over .200, and most of them had,like,5 at bats or something. 133 NL pitchers are batting .200 or lower as of about June 6.

All a manager expects out of a pitcher hitting these days is an easy K. Hopefully he might be able to sac bunt with none or even one out. And the AL? You just hope they don't hurt themselves.

Like many of you, I long for an idyllic baseball purity where all players must take their turn at the plate. If a pitcher hits an opposing player, he must face the consequences in his next turn at the plate. He can help himself and shock the other team by performing as a hitter as well as a pitcher. Some halcyon days when the Negro Leagues had rosters of twelve players and players like Martin Dihigo pitched one day, played shortstop the next and center field the next.

But the way things are now, there is no chance. Madison Bumgarner hits a homer off Kershaw and it's an awesome moment. Well Madison has a lifetime average of .167. And he is celebrated as a good hitting pitcher!

Most of them are like John Lester: 0-61 for his career! 3 sacrifice hits, 35 strikeouts.

If they won't let the pitchers practice hitting, get them out of there. If you guys long for the raw excitement of the sacrifice bunt and the mind-blowing double switch, I hope you enjoy it.

Me, I'd rather see a hitter at the plate who at least has an honest chance at getting a hit.

So until they turn back time, put me down in the pro-DH column.