Hankball

After Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang's recent foot injury, sustained while running the bases in an interleague game in Houston, team co-president and Jabba the Hutt look-alike Hank Steinbrenner (pictured at right, shortly after swallowing a whole fish) chose to blame the situation on the National League's failure to adopt the designated-hitter rule, saying:

"The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century.... I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

Hank's heart is clearly in the right place here. His team just lost its best pitcher, probably for the season, and he's pissed off. What do you do when you're pissed off, and things look bleak, and you don't know what to do, because you have no actual skills, because you inherited your job from your similarly callow and bitchy father, and even if you did know what to do, you wouldn't have any good options anyway? You start blaming other people. Or, better yet, other institutions, or arbitrary forces of nature. Why is the Yankees' pitching staff decimated? It's the National League's fault! Why are Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes getting run into the ground before they have a chance to fully develop? It's a liberal media conspiracy! (We never hear any of the good news about them...) Why are the Tampa Bay Rays legitimate contenders for the AL East crown? Sunspots!!!

Frankly, I'm with the Hankster on this one. Baseball without the designated hitter is totally 1800s (er, totally pre-1973; but Hank is a busy and important man; he doesn't have time to worry about the rules of scalar implicature). And there are plenty of things that pitchers did in the 1800s that they don't do anymore. Like take used balls home to eat. But while we're saving pitchers from the many perils that surround them, why stop at the designated hitter? Stand on principle, Hank! Pitchers are supposed to pitch, and that's it. Too many pitchers get injured covering first base on ground balls hit to the right side of the infield. We clearly need a designated fielder to stand behind the pitcher and take over his duties as soon as the ball leaves his hand. There should also be someone who can act out the pitcher's emotions and frustrations for him after the game, so as to prevent those all-too-avoidable hand-meets-wall incidents.

Save the pitchers! Write to your team's front office and tell them to support the Hankball reforms! More on this as it develops.