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Show by Jim Murray Muniriraiy im pnntt The most insulting rule in baseball history by Jim Murray When you come to think about it, it's the most insulting, degrading rule passed in professional sports in decades. I refer to the American League's designated-hitter rule. It should be unconstitutional. uncon-stitutional. By depriving pitchers of a chance to bat, it specifically makes a whole category of people permanent second-class citizens. It than Bob Feller's fastballs. Feller pressed him into service on his postwar barnstorming barnstorm-ing teams as a mop-up pitcher until the Kansas City Monarchs began to ask after the game, "Which one was Bob Feller?" Lem won 207 games and was a 20-game winner seven times in his career. Tim Lollar's schizophrenia, baseball-version, baseball-version, began in college, where he was an spawns a whole new despised minority. I mean, pitchers have their rights, too, and they include not being discriminated against. This law removes them from the company of real men. It puts them on a par with the Untouchables Un-touchables of India, or with Dodecanese place-kickers. It's a wonder baseball doesn't make them shave their heads or wear some distinguishing articles of clothing or make them cover their heads when passing a statue of Babe Ruth. If I were a pitcher I'd take it to the Supreme Court. I'd sue. So, pitchers can't hit? How do we know? Maybe Caruso could have danced. You take Tim Lollar of the San Diego Padres. He throws a pretty good, hard fastball. fast-ball. Comes in there at 100 miles an hour, give or take a foot. The slider moves. The changeup seems to stop enroute. But Tim Lollar is in danger of being thrown out of the pitchers' union. He's not an automatic out. In fact, he might be a cleanup hitter if he weren't cursed with that live arm. He has plenty of precedents for being torn between two careers. Babe Ruth must have been that way. Babe, you will remember, was a pretty swift left-handed pitcher of considerable con-siderable renown. He set a record for consecutive con-secutive scoreless innings pitched in a World Series that stood for 40 years. He won 24 games one year, 23 another and once had a season earned-run average of 1.75. He was betrayed by his penchant for hitting home runs. He hit 11 one year, serving only as a pitcher, and he broke the all-time record the next as a pitcher and part-time outfielder. Stan Musial was a left-handed pitcher of considerable promise. Until he had the good luck to injure his shoulder falling down on a ground ball. Four hundred and seventy-five homers and 3,630 hits later, baseball was ready to make a shrine of the place where he slipped and fell. There have been reverse switches, too. Bucky Walters was a so-so infielder for the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1930s who had a knack for throwing a ball so hard to first that it smoked on the way. The manager figured if first basemen had trouble catching it, they would have even more trouble hitting it. He was right. Bucky Walters won 27 games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1939 and 22 the next year. Bob Lemon was a journeyman infielder for the Cleveland Indians in the '40s till someone noticed his throws to first were harder to see outstanding pitcher and The Sporting News' Ail-American designated hitter. In the minors, he won a total of 11 games but he also hit seven home runs. He served as designated hitter when he was in the Yankee chain. In his first full season at San Diego, he won 16 games. But he also belted three home runs and hit safely in the first seven games he played. Now, the question is, should Tim Lollar have fallen on his shoulder his first year in Class D ball? Are we misusing a guy who might come to be known as "Tim the Man" or "The New Bambino"? Tim Lollar thinks not. "You know, when we're kids, the best player is always the pitcher pit-cher and he's also the cleanup hitter. He's usually more mature than the competition. But it's almost impossible to be both because hitting at the big league level requires total concentration and pitching at the big league level requires total concentration." Well, what about the Yankees' Red Ruffing? Ruf-fing? He won 273 major league games but also belted in 36 home runs, had 273 runs batted bat-ted in, 521 hits and often pinch-hit in a lineup that included Ruth, Gehrig, Dickey, Lazzeri. Why would a pitcher have to pinch-hit for Murderers' Row? What about Wes Ferrell who won 193 games but also had a .280 average with 38 home runs? "There are exceptions, but there is the other side of the coin, isn't there?" Lollar asked. Well, yes. There's Dean Chance, who batted exactly zero his last year in the big leagues. He used a bat the way a girl uses a parasol and once struck out 11 times in a row, only one short of Sandy Koufax's all-time record. Koufax inspired this moan from management's Fresco Thompson: "All Sandy San-dy can do at bat is hurt himself. That's the only time I root for the DH role." Tim Lollar is too good a pitcher to be ruined in the outfield, the Padres management insists. But they said that about Babe Ruth. The precedent Tim has to watch out for is not the Babe. It's the original "Hondo," Clint Hartung, who came from that town in Texas to take the New York Giants by storm in the '50s. Hondo batted .309 and .302 as a pitcher. Then they made him an outfielder, and he promptly hit .205 and .218. That's why Lollar wants the ball, not the bat. (c) 1983 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate |