Baseball is Back – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane
This past Thursday afternoon I listened to the latest episode of the Sidedoor at the Smithsonian podcast talking about the history of the song Take Me Out to the Ballgame and the Seventh Inning Stretch, one of the most American of rituals out there. It’s the moment in a baseball game when the entire stadium stands up and sings about going out to the ball game, eating cracker jacks, and peanuts of course as well. In the last 20 years following Take Me Out to the Ballgame usually we will also sing God Bless America, because that’s what we do in this country.
In the aftermath of listening to that podcast episode I began to think about how I might like to go see a ball game this Spring, but with the Major League Baseball lockout I knew I needed to find another outlet to see baseball, excluding the majors and probably the minor leagues as well. So, I looked at college ball. I was going to buy a ticket to a game or two of the Binghamton Bearcats Division 1 Men’s Baseball Team, my own university’s team. I still plan on doing so, however in the process of going to buy those tickets I saw the wonderful news that the lockout had been resolved and was going to end. Major League Baseball would be returning for the 2022 season with some changes to the rules.
Plenty of bloggers, columnists, and people on the radio have complained about different aspects of the rules. I want to add my voice to once specific area: the introduction of a universal designated hitter rule. This means that the National League will no longer have the distinction of having pitchers that bat alongside all the other players. Now National League teams too will have Designated Hitters like the American League has had for a while now. I’ve got to say I’m not terribly happy about this. For the longest time I’ve always preferred the National League’s way of doing things. In my own humble opinion, my own entirely amateur, spectator opinion, standing atop my soap box way out in the bleachers, some of the best ball games we’ve ever seen have been pitchers’ duels. Where it’s back and forth, back and forth two amazing pitchers on either side striking out almost everyone, letting in a few pop flies but very few runs. Those games often finally finish, perhaps miraculously with one pitcher getting a hit off of another pitcher and batting in a run.
Even better, there was Game 3 of the 2016 National League Divisional Series between the Chicago Cubs and the San Francisco Giants out in California. Madison Bumgarner was pitching for the home team and Jake Arrieta for the visitors, my beloved Chicago Cubs. Bumgarner to this point was unbeatable. He was the darling of everyone in San Francisco and especially Fox Sports commentator Joe Buck. He was unbeatable until Arrieta looked him in the eye that night and with two men on swung for the fences and got a three-run home run. He cracked the façade of the unbreakable Madison Bumgarner for the first time in the playoffs. The Cubs would go on to win that divisional series, and then they’d win the National League Pennant over the Los Angeles Dodgers and on a stormy night in Cleveland at the beginning of November they won their first World Series since 1908 on a night when I prayed more decades of the rosary than I’ve ever prayed before in my life.
Having pitchers bat allow for games like that to happen, allow for moments like that to happen. They allow for the opportunity for the most dramatic of finishes to take places, of pitchers taking the game into their own hands and becoming the hero of the day. On the other hand, so many major league pitchers are terrible batters that if you don’t have a really dramatic grandiose situation like Arrieta’s home run in Game 3 let’s say then at the very least it’s going to be a quick out, meaning it speeds the game up. Designated hitters are fun to watch, they’re sluggers after all, but the more fun kind of baseball is small ball, it’s the singles and the doubles, the base hits, not the home runs. The home runs and grand slams are exciting but it’s more exciting to see the team work together and strategize to earn runs over a couple of at bats, that’s the most fun kind of baseball out there.
So as much as I’m happy to see Major League Baseball return, to see the 2022 season after a long lockout, after the greed of the ownership was made plain and clear for all to see, and even though I have many other grievances alongside the universal DH rule I’m happy to see the season starting so soon. I do have other problems with professional baseball today, notably how Bally Sports continues to be the Scrooge of baseball broadcasting here in the Midwest, keeping their televised games off most peoples’ TVs out of the same greed that kept the lockout going so long. I hope this will be a good season for my beloved Chicago Cubs as well as for my adopted second team the Kansas City Royals. And if not, well, let’s just hope for a good year of baseball.
Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane 