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Buffa: Just say no to the designated hitter in the National League

I can see where it makes sense, because there would be more home runs, more fireworks, and excitement. I don't like it, because it would puncture a game that I have loved for 30 years.
Jeff Curry-USA TODAY SPORTS

Good afternoon, ladies and gents. I am here to tell you why the designated hitter doesn't need to come to the National League. There's a report out there from the players union, via Tony Clark, that the National League could be getting the DH soon. I don't like that at all.

I won't waste your time, just in case you are reading this as you wait outside or in a car without proper air conditioning. It's not a good look to be squinting, Kyle Reis style, at your phone while waiting for a bus off Hampton Avenue. So let's get moving.

Baseball doesn't need to be changed. I've written it before, shouted it often, and told as many people as I possibly could (including my cats and dogs at home). Baseball is a great game that doesn't need alteration, like the terrible stretch of roads on McCausland right before Southwest.

For the past year, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has been trying to change the game in some way. Whether it's putting runners on second base in extra innings or installing clocks to speed pitchers up, Manfred is as diligent as Reese Witherspoon in Election in trying to implement change in a game that doesn't need it.

Thankfully, this time, Manfred isn't the engine behind this change. It's the players union and the reasoning is easy: make more money! Oh, I'm sorry, millionaire athletes, you need more cash.

Baseball is fine. It's long, complex, integrated and requires loyal eyes. It doesn't have a clock, quarters, or periods to allow you to rest your mind. Baseball keeps going and going, like a train that crawls along the track making sure its passengers see every single landmark outside the window. That's the way it was when I was kid, watching Pedro Guerrero drive in runs and Jose DeLeon strike batters out, including pitchers. Was it a pretty sight to see Bob Tewksbury swing a bat at a baseball? No, but it felt right and fit in with the tough game that millions across the world have adored and loved for nearly two-hundred years.

I get why this push is still a living and breathing thing. Everybody wants to make baseball sexier and more relatable and easy to love. It's like Hollywood producers trying to take an independently made and brutally honest romantic comedy and turn it into something more commercially viable. Basically making every love story end like Pretty Woman. Baseball is that rugged indie darling, brushing off change and standing defiant. It doesn't need extra makeup or more buffalo hot sauce to be juicy and valuable.

Cardinals fans may like it right now because it would make trading for Albert Pujols a real possibility or finally give Jose Martinez a position where he doesn't have to treat first base like a salsa dancing class or try and impersonate Jose Canseco in right field. It makes sense to them because it gives their lovable late-blooming player a role on the Cardinals. I still don't like it.

Let the American League have it. It's been in that league for quite some time, so no change needed there. If there was a movement in the league offices, it should be to eradicate the DH from all of baseball. Why have it? So pitchers don't have to hit? Some pitchers want to hit, people like the Cardinals' phenom starter, Jack Flaherty.

Listen to Jack. He's serious and furious about hitting, being a former position player in high school and college. Take Carlos Martinez as well. A guy who can swing the bat. Adam Wainwright. Madison Bumgarner. Jake Arrieta. They can hit, so let them. Don't take the bat out of their hands due to how ugly Lance Lynn looked with a bat in his grip.

I can see where it makes sense, because there would be more home runs, more fireworks, and excitement. I don't like it, because it would puncture a game that I have loved for 30 years.

So, as Winston Wolf said (in a way) to two thugs in Pulp Fiction, pretty please with sugar on top, leave baseball alone.

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