The Final Season [by Greg Pattenaude]

RALPH FASANELLA (1914 - 1997) | Sandlot Game

Thursday was the most glorious day on the calendar, one filled with childlike dreams and unmatched optimism. No, I’m not referring to April Fool’s Day, but Major League Baseball’s Opening Day.  Never mind that there was wet snow falling most of the day at my house. The sun would be shining somewhere. What I did not count on was a Covid outbreak among Washington Nationals ballplayers cancelling the Mets first game of the season, and as I write this, it was just announced that the entire weekend series is cancelled. So on Thursday, I settled for a few innings of the Blue Jays – Yankees game which lasted three hours and thirty minutes, tied 2-2 after nine innings. The 10^th inning then showcased Major League Baseball’s latest game “enhancement” – putting a runner at 2^nd base to encourage scoring and forcing a quicker ending. The Blue Jays scored in the top of the 10^th; the Yankees did not in the bottom frame. This enhancement might be nice in youth sports where parents can get home earlier, but it has no place in professional sports. But I digress and this leads me to my main topic.  

Since its establishment in 1876, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs has had nine players in the lineup. In one half of an inning, nine players are in the field.  In the other half, those nine players take a turn batting. This repeats for nine innings, or if tied after nine, to extra innings. In the 1950s and 60s, the National League was seen as more exciting than its junior counterpart, the American League, formed in 1901. With sagging attendance in the late 1960s, American League owners sought a way to boost fan appeal. Ideas like yellow baseballs were ruled out. The Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley introduced bright colored uniforms for pizazz. But his biggest proposal, one that other American League owners agreed with, was the idea that pitchers, not being the best hitters, should be replaced in the lineup with someone else. That tenth person would be known as the Designated Hitter, or DH.  In 1973, the Yankees’ Ron Bloomberg had the distinction of being the first major league player to bat multiple times in a game while never having to put on a glove.  Since then, the two leagues played by different rules and whether you love or loathe the DH still is as heated as any political discussion.

Much has happened in the nearly 50 years since the DH’s introduction. In 1976, players were granted the right to free agency, boosting salaries by exponential proportions. The leagues added teams several times, to the current 15 teams in both leagues. In 1994, playoffs were expanded to allow more teams to participate in the post season.  Interleague baseball was introduced in 1997. And in 2000, the National and American Leagues, as legal entities, were dissolved. And during this past winter, Major League Baseball exercised its muscle to take control of minor league baseball, and in the process left forty communities around the country without a team. But through it all, pitchers hit in the National League, despite the DH being used in the minor leagues and colleges. I like to think of it as a badge of honor connecting the 19^th century to future generations – nine gloves and the same nine batters.

Baseball, by nature, is bucolic; it’s played on a field. Sure, there may be 50,000 seats surrounding that field, and, pre-Covid, fans are screaming. But there also are moments of parents and children or groups of friends sitting there watching the action, second-guessing managerial moves, cheering and clapping.  The best applause is saved for a starting pitcher coming to bat for the fourth time in a game.  

With the current collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players ending this year, it’s nearly certain that the DH will be adopted in the National League. From the players’ standpoint, it means a roster spot where a one-dimensional player can earn a lot of money or an aging player who can’t field his position anymore but can still hit can still earn big bucks at the end of a career. For the owners, its protection for a high-priced pitcher having to do anything other than throw a baseball and encourage the opportunity for more runs in a game. There is this notion that fans, particularly younger ones of the video game era, want more runs at any cost.

The fan base who enjoys a more cerebral experience of talking to your neighbor, second guessing managers, bunting a runner over to 2^nd and double-switches--I’ll call this strategy--will come to an end.  During the Covid-shortened season of 2020, the DH was used in the National League, under a “health and safety” protocol to protect pitchers from overly exerting themselves. It was pretty clear that this was a trial run, like the silly runner on 2^nd to start extra innings rule.  

So this is it. My Mets, welcomed into the National League in 1962, appear to have a very strong team this year, and just paid 27 year-old Francisco Lindor $340 million to play shortstop for the next 10 years.  And they have new ownership for only the third time in their history. As far as the National League, it had a good run. With the inevitable ahead, I’ve branded this as The Final Season.  Let it begin.

Comments

[David Lehman]

Very enjoyable post, Greg. Thanks!

[Firetoy and Waterhill]

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