The Universal DH is One Less Thing I'll Like About Baseball

Over the past couple of years, my passion for baseball has dimmed considerably. The implementation of the Universal DH won't help matters much. 

I know it's not official just because Rob Manfred says so but it is just about the only thing MLB and the MLBPA agree on these days. 

The DH has been in the American League for nearly 50 years and I am grateful for the likes of David Ortiz. 

But seeing pitchers hit is one of the things I enjoy about watching National League games especially when they go deep. Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner has 18 career homeruns and will probably not get a chance for more unless the D'Backs see fit to use him as a pinch hitter or as a DH in interleague games. 

There have been some great pitchers who had power - Bob Lemon, Warren Spahn, Walter Johnson, Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson and soon to be Hall of Fame inductee Jim Kaat. Then there was Rick Wise who hit 2 HRs while throwing a no-hitter. 

But then there are the pitchers you don't expect to go deep. In recent memory, Bartolo Colon comes to mind when he became the oldest player in MLB history to hit his first career HR. 

Then there is the late Rick Camp. A relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves with an .074 lifetime batting average, Camp crushed a HR in the bottom of the 18th inning off Tom Gorman of the New York Mets on the Fourth of July in 1985. Moments earlier, Braves announcer John Sterling had proclaimed that if Camp hit a homerun that game would be certified as absolutely the nuttiest in the history of baseball. Camp would go on to be the losing pitcher of that game which the Mets won 16-13 in 19 innings. But all that people remember from that game is Camp's HR and the fireworks which were set off at four in the morning.

The implementation of the DH removes the possibility of the very kind of wackiness I love so dearly about baseball.