Sunday, May 14, 2017

Baseball numerology.

Three recent posts dealt with that silly 18 inning game in Wrigley Field in which three Cubs starting pitchers pinch "hit" for three Cubs relief pitchers and all three struck out. Pitchers are not players and they should not bat. There should be a designated fielder and only eight players bat.

That simple concept was dismissed by a friend, in part, with the idea that baseball has nine innings and must therefore have nine batters. Three strikes, three outs. Blah, blah, blah.

What's really amazing is that this silly view is probably prevalent among baseball fans. It's especially silly considering my suggestion that there be fewer batters. Whether the pitcher bats or whether the number of batters equals the number of innings are irrelevant to the more fundamental idea that we should all want fewer batters no matter how or why that occurs.

Fewer batters means better batters.

Fewer batters means that the best batters come up more often.

Why would anyone oppose that?

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