Tell the truth . . . isn't it fun to watch pitchers hit?
Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon hite a two-home run off Padres righthander James Shields in the second inning at Petco Park on May 7, 2016. Credit: Getty Images/Denis Poroy
This, Tony Clark and Rob Manfred agreed on.
While the bickering parents of Major League Baseball squabbled over 10 games and a couple hundred million dollars — little more than pocket change for a sport worth billions — few things had the honor of not causing much strife at all.
Advertising on uniforms? Maybe. A universal designated hitter? Sure.
The owners, represented by Manfred, floated the idea of the universal DH, not only for this season but for 2021, carrying it to the next collective bargaining agreement. Manfred reportedly walked that back on Sunday, offering to cancel the universal DH for 2021 if a full season cannot be played in 2020. Though that's a significant change, it still appears that the dissolution of pitchers hitting is on the horizon — if not now, then eventually.
After all, it's hard to imagine that Clark and the players, glad to have another avenue to extend their careers, will have much of a quarrel.
The ramifications are clear: It's possible we already may have seen the last of pitchers hitting — an unceremonious deletion that will change the fabric of the National League. And it seems increasingly likely that if it doesn't happen before the next CBA, it will happen soon after.
And that’s a little bit of a shame.
There’s nothing wrong with the DH, and it works perfectly well in the American League, the once-home of David Ortiz and Edgar Martinez and Frank Thomas. It also makes sense that players want a system that prioritizes offensive production, keeps pitchers from hitting and provides a landing spot for guys who are better off not attempting to put on a glove. But the removal of pitchers hitting is still a loss, and one that changes the character of an idiosyncratic sport that often is made special specifically because of how weird it is.
In a sports world becoming increasingly homogenized in which children are specializing in positions shortly after exiting the womb, the ninth hitting spot in a National League baseball game was a bright anomaly.
It wasn’t just seeing pitchers hit — though few things in sports are as delightful as an inexperienced player besting a dominant one — but it also was about observing the strategy that comes with navigating a lineup, manufacturing runs, making double switches and, yes, even bunting. And though baseball in general has shifted away from many of these things, this new change will bring a permanent division from its playing roots.
And, let’s be honest, it was mostly about seeing pitchers hit.
Bartolo Colon’s home run has been watched more than 1.6 million times on MLB’s YouTube channel, and millions of other times on other channels and websites — a testament to how weird and how wonderful that moment was. Gary Cohen narrated over the action as if aliens had just landed at Petco Park. His trained, professional voice, suddenly full of wonder and excitement, even cracked as he spoke. And we’ve seen that excitement, to a lesser extent, time and time again.
There are the natural hitters, like Madison Bumgarner and Mike Hampton, and the unexpected heroes, all of whom can inject a special jolt into a game. And, fan of the DH or not, there’s every indication that it gets attention: Baseball Twitter loves nothing more than to clasp on to these moments in a show of collective 280-character glee. The agreed-upon hashtag is #pitcherswhorake.
It’s easy to see why. Few people may remember Dae-Sung Koo, the Mets pitcher who appeared in 33 major-league games in 2005, but those who do remember him with a bat in his hand.
“I’m just going to go out on a limb and say this is . . . this is the biggest give-up at-bat,” Tim McCarver said as Koo came up to hit against 6-10 Yankees lefthander Randy Johnson. That, naturally, was immediately followed by a loud thwack.
Koo laced a double to right-center off the future Hall of Famer and in the dugout, a young David Wright squealed and pointed in unfettered joy. Wright was still beaming when Koo — now wearing a jacket although it was a sunny day in the middle of May — went to third on Jose Reyes' bunt, noticed that home plate was uncovered and made a headfirst dive around the bat lying near the plate to beat a diving Jorge Posada's tag (maybe).
Sure, many may argue that these little joys aren’t worth the headache and that the universal DH is a necessary step in the sport’s progression. But these uniquely human, accessible moments are among the things that emotionally tether people to baseball.
If Koo, who first played professionally with the KBO and its universal DH, could make contact against a pitcher of Johnson's caliber in his second-ever at-bat, what else can happen? Is it possible that one of the best parts of baseball is how nobodies from nowhere can, at any given time, eke their way into the game and be part of iconic moments that stay with fans for decades?
We’re constantly reminded that baseball is a business. It’s projected to us every time Manfred and Clark play high-stakes ping-pong with the fate of the league, and the result has been a fan base that’s disillusioned and disappointed. The fight over millions of dollars isn’t relatable to most of us. Nothing about baseball right now feels joyful or exciting.
This isn’t the fault of the universal DH, which will seem normal soon enough, but maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to optimize things for the biggest possible bang. Maybe there should be more room for fun in the game. Maybe baseball should stay a little weird.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
