I'm having fun with analogies, but they're really tangential to my main point. The main point is this- the game was not invented with the idea that one position on the field would yield batters that are radically inferior to every other position. All the so-called strategy that surrounds dealing with a near guaranteed out in the nine hole is stuff that has built up around an interpretation of the pitcher wildly at variance with the original concept of the game. Babe Ruth being both a tremendous pitcher and tremendous hitter was not supposed to be a terribly unlikely event. The pitcher isn't supposed to have less power or hit for less average than anyone else. But because of the extreme specialization of the game, that's exactly what has happened. There are two responses to the issue. The AL admitted that something in the game had gone horribly awry and made an admittedly clumsy attempt to address it. The NL in contrast pretended that there was never a problem and that even if there was a problem it actually made the game better. But it doesn't. There is nothing interesting about incompetence.Naples39 wrote:That comparison seems a little ridiculous to me. The rules of the game are simple, everyone who plays in the field hits, period. Furthermore, the rotation of batting order is fixed, not some arbitrary designation as your sample suggests. Baseball has never been a game of free substitution (and likely never will be), so comparing it to any other american sport in that regard is totally offbase.
The AL batting orders are closer to the spirit of the game, honestly.