I would love for my son to grow up and play baseball, but I will never let him play DH, and if he wants to be a pitcher, I expect him to swing a bat like the rest of his teammates. Some say the designated hitter makes the game more fun by increasing the likelihood of home runs and extra-base hits. However, the boosted offense takes away the strategy of the game: fewer players steal bases, fewer players bunt, and players aren’t strategically switched out in the later innings. The leagues that have adopted the DH are operating under the assumption that power-hitting is what makes baseball fun.
Yet even with this flawed logic, it’s worth noting that since the adoption of the American League DH rule in 1973, all of the home run leaders have played in the National League. The DH role is usually given to veteran players thought to be too old to run bases or play defense, but when a 36-year-old Barry Bonds broke the single-season home run record in 2001, he did so while starting every game in left field. When a 42-year-old Bonds broke the career home run record in 2007, he was still starting every game in left field. Some will say this feat is tainted by the conventional wisdom that Bonds took steroids, but steroids or not, he had the option to play Designated Hitter on one of 14 American League teams, and he instead chose, for the same amount of money, to hustle in left field for 21 162-game seasons.
Burrell was a nightmare defensively but a threat with the bat, so Bochy’s idea was to keep him in the game long enough to drive in a run or two for the Giants, and then replace him with Nate Schierholtz, the left fielder known for playing better defense. |
After Bonds retired, Giants manager Bruce Bochy continued the team’s strategy of putting DH-type players in left field. In 2010, he enlisted Pat Burrell, the Tampa Bay Rays’ struggling DH, to start games in left field for the Giants. Burrell was a nightmare defensively but a threat with the bat, so Bochy’s idea was to keep him in the game long enough to drive in a run or two for the Giants, and then replace him with Nate Schierholtz, the left fielder known for playing better defense. Bochy also took the Baltimore Orioles’ DH, Aubrey Huff, started him at first base, and then, once Huff drove in a couple runs, replaced him with Travis Ishikawa, a first baseman with better defensive skills. This strategy led the Giants to an unlikely World Series title, their first in 56 years.
Six years later, Bochy’s unconventional tactics are making headlines again, as his star pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, has insisted on hitting during every game, including interleague road games where Bochy has the option of enlisting a designated hitter. Most National League pitchers can’t wait to play an interleague road game so they can take a break from the embarrassment of trying to swing a bat. Not MadBum. He thinks pitchers hiding behind another player to get out of playing offense are the real embarrassment.
This year, Bumgarner wanted to participate in the Home Run Derby, which was held yesterday between eight major league players. All the players who participated were significantly better hitters than Bumgarner, but that doesn’t mean Bumgarner couldn’t have won, or at least put on a good show. The Home Run Derby is known for upset victories, and Bumgarner has shown he could be the one to pull off such an upset. However, the league said no, and Bumgarner spent his Monday watching Home Run Derby from the sidelines like the rest of us.
Their logic is that pitches hate hitting, fans hate watching pitchers hit, and adding an extra power-hitter to the lineup makes the game more fun. |
Regardless of his exclusion from the Derby, Bumgarner has undeniably revitalized the credibility of the hitting pitcher, and his timing couldn’t be better. The conventional wisdom among baseball enthusiasts is that the National League will adopt the DH rule, and probably sooner than later. Their logic is that all the other leagues (minor, college, international, amateur) now play with a designated hitter, and that it’s time for the National League to get with the times. Their logic is that pitches hate hitting, fans hate watching pitchers hit, and adding an extra power-hitter to the lineup makes the game more fun. Madison Bumgarner flies in the face of this logic. He likes hitting, fans like to watch him, and he makes the game more fun.
I’m a Los Angeles native and a lifelong Dodgers fan, and it’s my love of the Dodgers that makes me loyal to the National League and its more traditional rules, but ironically, it’s my rival team, the team I hate, that’s actually doing it right. While the Giants were building a championship team, the Dodgers were stuck with an overweight Andruw Jones and an aging Manny Ramirez in their outfield. They would have loved the option to put one of those players in the DH slot, but no such slot existed in the National League, and it never will exist if Bochy and Bumgarner have it their way. So on the topic of letting pitchers hit and keeping the designated hitter out of baseball, I am, for the first time in my life, rooting for the Giants.
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Photo: Getty Images
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