It's a little gauche to laugh at your own jokes, I'd think. And your posts contain a good dose of (unintentionally?) humorous falsehoods.
Not many have predicted this, so you're arguing a straw man. DH-dislikers feel it
should be eliminated, but don't predict it will be. It's the DH advocates who run around declaring that they are the "cool kids" and everybody is going to jump on their hot new trend…despite the fact that the NL has not done this in 43 years of the DH, hasn't even held a vote on the issue since 35 years ago. The last time the NL even seriously considered the DH, Jimmy Carter was in the White House and Tim McCarver was still playing.
Except for the pesky fact about the NL consistently outdrawing the AL. And
the AP/AOL poll from 2005, which found that the fans broke this way:
Get rid of DH in AL:
40%
Keep it as it is: 30%
Add DH to NL: 29%
(no answer, 1%)
Adding the DH to the NL was the
least-popular of the three options with the fans, and getting rid of the DH was solidly the #1 choice. You could cut the support for repealing the DH by
one-quarter, and it would still outpoll the support for expanding it.
A separate poll in 2009 (the one
Anyone was referring to upthread) by the Associate Press/Knowledge Networks focused on the question of using the DH in the World Series:
No DH: 38%
All DH: 34%
DH only in AL parks (current): 28%
Closer, but still no DH preference.
Your hyperbole aside (no pitchers are that poor at hitting), the poll disagrees with you:
"I'd just as soon not see it in either league," said Gary Hartwig, a Cubs fan who lives near Hudson, Iowa. "The manager has fewer decisions to make when there's no pitcher hitting. It makes the game more boring."
"Most fans" presumably watch athletic events to see athletes. Guys who don't actually compete, over-the-hill-fat-ass-fat-contract guys who hide in the dugout for virtually the entire game, are really not that popular and fans would prefer to see them go, already. Get out of here, Big Crappi! Take your needles and shove them, A-Roid! Fans of a particular team might still support their team's DH, but does anyone outside of Boston give a sh*t about Ortiz? Few, I'd wager. Mike Trout, OTOH…
Examples, please? I and others have given plenty of ours upthread. Logically, "strategy" involves coping with your weaknesses or exploiting those of others. A leveling mechanism, be it the DH or any other, reduces strategy, by definition.
Your "few remaining holdouts" comprise one-half of MLB's leagues and the majority of its teams, and the NL is the more-successful league, financially. (The second-biggest baseball-playing country, Japan, also has no DH in one of its two leagues, the Central. As in the US, the Central League is the more popular and more successful of the two.)
And people like you (perhaps including you) have been making predictions like this year after year after year. And they've been wrong… year after year after year. I guess I should commend your eternal, albeit completely unmerited, optimism…are you a Cubs fan, by any chance?
You're kidding, right? Somebody brings it up every year because it's an easy column, that's all. Nothing new under the sun.
The
AL has the interleague edge, 2375-2146. (.525 winning percentage.) The AL has had the better record in 14 of the 18 interleague seasons, including
every season since 2004. I'd guess the "unfair advantage" is that in the AL parks, the AL gets to play a "professional hitter" who's used to taking his cuts everyday, and the NL has to try and match that with a scrub who might not have gotten a start that month.
As for the World Series, the record since 1976 (when the DH was introduced in the Series) is AL-20 wins, NL-18 wins. Again, no advantage, fair or otherwise, for the NL.
Yeah, did you see how Mat Latos got hurt? A line drive hit him on the mound! That is SO unfair, pitchers are closer to the plate than anyone, they're practically defenseless out there! We've gotta do something about it! We need to put those pitcher-protecting cages from batting practice out there! What, you're going to protect some old guy tossing BP, but you're gonna let Latos and Jerry Blevins and so many others get hurt? That's crazy!
No, wait, why don't we just put two more players out there, kneeling on the grass on each side in front of the mound, and holding plexiglass shields they can use to protect both themselves and the pitchers? They don't have to bat or anything, it will help us keep Beloved Superstars like Chase Utley in the game even though they can't get around on the fastball any more. Why should a B.S. like Utley be forced to retire because he can't hit any more than B.S. David Ortiz should hang 'em up because he can't field? (Or run…) Let's face it, baseball needs all the B.S. it can get, right?
It's brilliant, the union will love it because more players get to start! I even have a name for them:
Designated
Injury-
Prevention
Shield-
Holding
Infield
Technicians! It's brilliant, I tell you! D.I.P.S.H.I.T.s now! We have to protect those poor, helpless, weak, brittle, tender, succulent, babies! I mean, pitchers! Save the pitchers!
Seriously, what are you…a
traditionalist or something?
Eww.