We're hearing noises now that the NL is finally going to get the DH. We've heard this one so much that my feeling about it is that I'll believe it when I see it.
What is amazing to me is not that it might finally happen that it has taken this long-46 years and counting.
"If you’re not ready for the designated hitter to be part of National League baseball, your time to get ready is getting shorter by the day. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and more than that, it’s a matter of how."
"Tony Clark, the players union chief and himself a designated hitter 101 times during his career, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday the “topic has come up, independent of us bringing it up.” This is the result of Major League Baseball’s move to two 15-team leagues, necessitating interleague play every day throughout the season, meaning that come September, some contenders are playing games under the other league’s rules.
What is amazing to me is not that it might finally happen that it has taken this long-46 years and counting.
"If you’re not ready for the designated hitter to be part of National League baseball, your time to get ready is getting shorter by the day. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and more than that, it’s a matter of how."
"Tony Clark, the players union chief and himself a designated hitter 101 times during his career, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday the “topic has come up, independent of us bringing it up.” This is the result of Major League Baseball’s move to two 15-team leagues, necessitating interleague play every day throughout the season, meaning that come September, some contenders are playing games under the other league’s rules.
http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2015-03-10/national-league-dh-designated-hitter-tony-clark-rob-manfred-david-ortiz-red-sox-jon-lester-cubs
Here is a list of 'Five irrational Reasons to not Accept the DH'
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/designated-hitter-national-league-mlb
and here are 5 reasons according to Forbes the NL will have it soon:
"No matter the fervor. No matter your love of the chess match between double-switches, and the joy of <gasp!> pitchers hitting home runs, it’s time for Major League Baseball to put the designated hitter in the National League. Just get ready for it. Quit fighting it. Stop saying this is the road to ruin. There’s good reasons that now, more than ever, Major League Baseball needs to put the DH in the NL. You may not like it, but it’s almost surely going to happen, possibly as early as 2016."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2015/04/28/get-used-to-it-5-reasons-the-dh-is-coming-to-the-national-league/
For me it's not hard. After all:
1. I'm an American League guy-I root for the New York Yankees
2. I respect pitching and understand it's vital importance but for me I prefer offensive slugfests to pitching duels.
3. The MLB has suffered an offensive contraction the last few years at it is.
Not everyone is on board however, though for the most part the Player's Union has been for it-as it means another highly paid player salary.
Madison Bumgarner saw Max Scherzer’s comments advocating that the designated hitter should be instituted in both leagues, and asserting that nobody pays to see a pitcher “swinging a wet newspaper.”
"Any thoughts on that, Madison?"
“Oh, well, my wet newspaper is 34 ½ inches, 33 ½ ounces, and I’m waiting on some new ones right now,” said Bumgarner, asked for comment.
"One more thing: Bumgarner hit two grand slams with that newspaper last season."
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/giants/2015/04/27/bumgarner-rejects-idea-dh-moving-national-league-takes-offense-scherzers-wet-newspaper-comment/
Impressive though Bumgarner is an outlier and overall this move will increase offense.
What impresses me, again, is that it's been this long. It just shows how long traditionalists can hold on for. I can't help but think about other social issues-sports say a lot about society to say the least. Sometimes liberals like myself like to think that time is on our side-that fossilized ideas will soon give way.
Yet, you have to also be impressed how long bad ideas can hold on for. I can't but think of Clarence Darrow who even upon losing his big case against the death penalty sort of gloated to the effect that the future belonged to him and would agree with him.
Yet that was 81 years ago.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/darrowclosing.html
How smug would he feel today? Arguably, the tide is against the death penalty here in the US-with it obsolete in Western Europe. Still, it's not totally defunct in the US by any means.
I'm not sure that I am categorically against it's use. Still on many issues that I agree with the progressive position we seem to see very halting progress. It gets you to thinking: how much is belief in societal evolution a pleasant illusion? The human race can be stubborn and can stubbornly hold onto some pretty arcane social practices.
P.S. I'm struck that the belief in the rights of LGBT has just skyrocketed in recent years but the belief in say a woman's right to choose still is highly contested. This is why I don't think Madonna was nuts to argue that the rights of gays are more advanced than those of women.
http://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2015/3/10/many-heresies-madonna-louise-ciccone
A lot of people acted like that comment by her was ridiculous but I don't agree. The answer as to 'who is more oppressed' between say a woman, a gay, and a black is probably in the bird's eye view unanswerable. The discrimination in these different cases is different in kind and so it's not really possible to say who is 'more oppressed.'
P.S. Here is a piece on gays vs. the transgender community.
http://tgmentalhealth.com/2009/12/21/the-differences-between-the-transgender-and-the-gaylesbian-experience/
I taped the Bruce Jenner interview and am currently watching it. I have to say that as he relates his experience it seems to me to beg as many questions as it answers. Apparently he has the 'soul of a woman' yet he also is sexually attracted to women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwNH52S9Etw
So does this mean he's straight-or gay? You might say it makes him straight-but if he's really a woman doesn't this mean he's gay? You have the Howard Stern level humor of straight guys saying "I'm a lesbian trapped in man's body' but Bruce might seem to literally be just that.
I like that that LGBT article points out that there are differences between gay people and transgender people. Not surprisingly, some see transgender folks as inspiring of political fights against the existence of the nation state.
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v90/n1/full/fr200841a.html
It's been argued that the Jews were uniquely hated because of their being a people not attached to a particular nation state. Then something like this I guess you could say was imposed on Africans sold into slavery across the world.
I will admit I still don't totally get the transgendered phenomenon. I don't have a problem with them having political rights but I don't wholly understand it.
The point seems to be that gender is a purely arbitrary thing. I don't agree-I think gender is a real thing-though I get Zizek's point that while sexual difference exists there is no way to quantify exactly what this difference is. Speaking of Zizek.
http://www.lacan.com/zizwoman.htm
Yet if I understand the TG position if tomorrow I decide I'm really a woman everyone has to act as if this is true?
P.S.S. I think it's fair to say that the one thing you can't accuse my posts of is not covering a ar field: this piece started out on the DH, toched on abortion, traditionalism, the death penalty, gays, transgenders, and Zizek.
My original point still stands though: the human race can be very stubborn-I guess Freud would say 'anal?'
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