Pontotoc Middle School

[The Former DMiller]

Your mention of heightened offense leads me to a question: would you rather see a game where two pitchers have dueling shutouts, or a game where two teams are smacking homeruns and the score is tied 10-10? I'm guessing you'd rather have the offensive game, which is fine, but my preference is to see a great pitched game, which seems to have become rarer nowadays.

Anyway, I don't see the strategy argument going anywhere. If you don't appreciate the little nuances in baseball that are caused by the lack of a DH then I can't force you to appreciate them. Most pitchers actually weren't bad hitters when they were in Little League. In fact, most of them were probably the best hitters on their teams. The fact that college ball and the minor leagues use the DH, though, means that pitchers don't have a chance to bat on a regular basis after Little League so a lot of them lose their hitting talent. If there was no DH at any level we'd see a lot more good hitting pitchers. I'll leave you with Crash Davis' (Kevin Costner's) speech to Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham:

Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.