Commissioner Hopes to See End of the DH

The designated hitter has been designated for destruction by baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent. He is willing to take on the opposition, which includes most of the American League, the players association and AL baseball fans who have grown accustomed to the rule that was adopted Jan. 11, 1973.

“I do believe at some point -- and I hope it’s before I pass from this mortal plane -- that it gets eliminated,” Vincent said. “There are some American League owners who have spoken to me about it, and they’re opposed to it. From time to time they tell me that they would like to take it on. And I’ve told them that I wouldn’t view their conduct as seditious if they did it. I don’t mind being part of the debate.”

Vincent views the DH as an experiment that has run its course. “As I understand it, the original reason was basically to provide more offense in the American League because it was perceived in the early 1970s that attendance was not as strong as it should be,” Vincent said. “This was regarded as an experiment to increase American League offense. I think if it was an experiment, fine, it worked. And baseball’s doing very well; attendance is up 6 percent today. As far as I’m concerned, it could be declared a very successful experiment that is over. Moreover, I look at the argument that the DH is basically older players whose careers are being extended, and I go out to Yankee Stadium and who’s the DH but Kevin Maas. So the generalizations about the DH are hard to support.”

(Former Commissioner Peter Ueberroth conducted a fan survey of the DH but the results were never made public. A spokesman said the unofficial results indicated fans wanted the DH left alone.)

Vincent freely admits he is a purist, intent on seeing baseball played the way it was invented, with the pitcher batting. “I think there should be one format,” he said. “I think baseball is baseball. The leagues are very nice organizations, but they are part of baseball. And putting aside all the traditional arguments, I think the very practical argument is that there should be one format. I think the pitchers are ballplayers and a number of them can hit. And I think the game is best played in the National League format.”

The American League, almost on a collective basis, is telling the commissioner to keep his hands off their DH. “I don’t know if the commissioner of other leagues dictates the rules of the game,” Blue Jays’ General Manager Pat Gillick said.

George Steinbrenner, not surprisingly, finds himself opposing Vincent on the DH issue. “The public likes knockouts, they like baskets, they like touchdowns, they like scoring,” he said. “The purists of baseball would say the DH is not pure. Well, today what sells is more spectacular than purity.”

“This is not something the commissioner needs to waste his time talking about,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said. “Each league has its own rule; the American League is not about to change the rule. I think it altered the game when it was adopted, but now it’s been adopted for (18) years. So now it’s part of the game. I didn’t like it when it came in, but we’ve lived with it and it hasn’t changed the game. This idea that it decreases the strategy is nonsense. You know, the big deal about a double switch. Any imbecile managing a team could do a double switch.”

As for the owners whom Vincent mentioned are against the DH, Reinsdorf said, “They’re probably in the National League.” Vincent refused to name the owners favoring abolishment.

How difficult will it be for Vincent to remove the DH? Reinsdorf said the AL conducted a secret ballot last year and voted 11-3 in favor of the DH. A Newsday survey of general managers and owners yielded 11 in favor, two against and one undecided.

“This game isn’t being played for the aesthetic enjoyment of the commissioner,” Twins GM Andy MacPhail said. “Should the game be played the same everywhere? If that’s the case, then you’re going to have to tear down Fenway and some of these other parks that are unusual. I mean, it’s the very nature of our game. The environments are very different in both leagues; the ballparks are different, the surfaces are different. I think the DH is just another element of that.”

Much of the argument in favor of the DH centers on increased offense, but in statistics provided by the Elias Sports Bureau, there is not that great a difference between the leagues. The AL has posted a higher batting average than the NL in every year since the DH began, but the difference has not been significant. In the most telling statistic, the 14 AL teams batted a collective .259 last year, compared to .256 for the 12 NL teams. And the AL averaged 8.81 runs per game to 8.23 runs for the NL.

Before the DH, the NL outhit the AL in nine straight seasons, with the peak coming in 1972 when the NL scored 824 more runs.

The DH certainly has been a financial drain to the AL, and one general manager, who asked not to be identified, said it is a waste of money. “To be competitive you have to spend a million, a million and a half, two million or even more,” he said. “If you eliminate the DH you eliminate a high salary position.”

Paul Molitor is the highest-paid DH at $3.2 million this season. Jack Clark will receive $2.9 million, and Alvin Davis, Kirk Gibson and Chili Davis will earn $1.7 million apiece. Dave Parker will make $1.6 million, Harold Baines $1.3 million. Second-year player Maas is the biggest bargain at a mere $250,000.

It is because of those salaries that the players association would have major objections to the DH being abolished. “It takes a regular job and it makes it a utility job or a pinch-hitting job,” said Don Fehr, head of the union. “And that’s not going to sit well with the players. It’s just (Vincent’s) pet project and it’s sort of non-controversial in the sense that he doesn’t have to talk about collusion ... “

Vincent does have some support in his position. Despite all the public expressions of support, Tigers chairman Jim Campbell does not believe there is overwhelming support to continue the DH. “I think if they (AL owners) took a vote on it right now it might not pass,” he said. “The overhead is getting to be a big thing.”

Campbell said he does not buy the theory that the DH is a career-extender. “Al Kaline did it for a year but didn’t need it to get to the Hall of Fame,” Campbell said. But wouldn’t he like to see his own power hitter, Cecil Fielder, stay around longer by becoming a DH? Said Campbell: “He might weigh 400 pounds by then.”