Why? Because I'm a glutton for punishment.

[ssigman]

i vote baldbil is in the next p/cp...he just convinced me the dh is bad...

[NICKinDALLAS]

Sweet. And now my CP...

Oh you poor misguided soul. Your imprudent idealism is surpassed solely by your inability to punctuate correctly. Your only logical statement came just 3 sentences in.. “Any logical person, scratch that, any person can tell you it makes no sense to have two separate leagues have different rules.” Stop right there and you are correct sir. Stop right there and there is no reason for us to be having this discussion. But you didn’t stop there did you? No sir, you followed that with a load of diarrhea in the form of letters on a page.
You asked your obligatory audience to answer the question ‘Why does a pitcher need to have at-bats?’ Seriously? I mean, really? If that is the case then why not have a designated fielder for big papi? It makes sense. Let him concentrate on what he does best right? (I believe that was your argument)
Moving on to your next laughable point; allowing the geriatric division to continue in their career. You make mention of the (and I quote) ‘great’ edgar martinez. Um, sure. A quick check of basball-reference.com shows us that he is right up there with the likes of bob johnson, joe randa, and corey koskie. (Quick, name just one of their teams). Not to take anything away from edgar, but with steroids in the spotlight as they are now, how do we know that he wasn’t juiced? It’s sad but true. We can’t be sure. The DH was tailor made for ‘riods (just ask jose canseco).
You said that your biggest problem is the momentum killer it is for the pitcher to come to the plate with runners on. I say to you that it is all part of the game. As evidence, I give you the following: Shaq and his free throws; the Dallas Cowboys and their field goal kickers (prior to this coming season), and so it is with pitchers and batting.
Football is the only sport that the players don’t generally play both offense as well as defense because of the physicality of the sport, not because it would make the offense worse. If that were the case, how do you explain the Arena Football League?? I think that the Cap’n and Cokes must really be clouding your ability to reason.
As I said before, the DH is the most ridiculous position in major league sports and you have done nothing to prove otherwise.

[BtownJay]

Okay, fine... not that i want to, but i'll post it...

My rebuttal...

I would love to know what makes the DH any more ridiculous than any other position in professional sports. It’s a position much like the kicker in football actually. They don’t play every down, they don’t have to take the field to prevent the other team from scoring. They are sent in to do a certain job… much like the DH, right? Interesting. So in a way, getting rid of the DH would be like getting rid of the kicker. Why can’t players who play every down do the kicking for themselves? Why must we bring someone else in to do it?

What does giving teams in the NFL free extra points have ANYTHING to do with the DH? What do teams get for free when they use a DH? If we got rid of the kicker, we could use that roster spot to give younger prospects a chance to play. You see how retarded that sounds? Now lets think about this for a minute. If you have the DH spot, wouldn’t it create a chance for younger prospects to play? Instead of that guy DHing, he would be at 1st base or somewhere in the outfield right? Wouldn’t that be taking a spot that a prospect could potentially play? For example, last season the Phillies had Jim Thome and Ryan Howard (you know the rookie of the year) who both played 1st base. Mr. Howard missed a lot of playing time because the Phils had to use Thome at 1st. If the National league had a DH position, the rookie/prospect would have been able to play more. Well, so much for that prospect theory.

Why the DH came to be really has no relevance here at all. The fact is it makes the game better now. Do you really care why it was started over 30 years ago? So the NL has a couple of players who are among the lead leaders… what does that even have to do with a DH? How much better are the DH’s hitting than the National league pitchers? How many rallies are stopped because the pitcher comes to the plate?

I was at the Mets vs. Giants game a few weeks ago. I couldn’t believe how perfect that game was for my argument. The game went 12 innings, and the teams had to use a total of 15 pitchers. Because there is no DH, the managers had to take their pitchers out of the game early to pinch hit for them. Well, that’s no big deal, that’s a good strategy battle between the teams right? During that one game, yes. But after that game, the teams bullpens were over used and filled with tired arms. Another interesting stat from that game… Mets leadoff man, Jose Reyes, came to the plate 6 times. And wouldn’t you know, he lead off the inning EVERY time he came to the plate. That means, that the pitchers/pinch hitters (aka, not good enough to start players) ending 6 of the innings and rallies. Talk about a game being frustrating and a big let down. You get excited, runners on second and third, two outs… ohhhh, and here comes the pitcher. Wonderful. I guess they should have used strategy and pinch hit for the pitcher in the 3rd inning.

A lot of people like to argue that some pitchers are actually good hitters. Which I fully agree with. Look at Kerry Wood, he’s currently 3 for 6 and has been known to hit the long ball. Bronson Arroyo has two homers this year. Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton, and Greg Maddox have been pretty solid at the plate through out their careers. So for argument sake, lets say every team has one pitcher who is a relative stud at the plate. That means, once every 4 or 5 games you are going to have a hitter who is competent in the #9 hole. You know what, do me a favor and let me know when that game comes around so I can tune in.

[BaldBil]

What is a p/cp? If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve. I would rather throw the mud than mediate.

[NICKinDALLAS]

Point/Counterpoint. Topics are thrown out, two people are chosen who have differing views, hillarity ensues.

[BtownJay]

Originally Posted by BaldBil

What is a p/cp? If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve. I would rather throw the mud than mediate.

Point/counter-point is kind of a writing competition tournament. It matches up Ranters head to head on a certain topic. Writer 1 will write their article to make their point, and so will writer 2. And then we read each others articles and write a final rebuttal to further make our point/throw theirs in the mud.

Then 3 judges vote (boxing style) to determine the winner. The winner moves on to face another one of the winners until we have one final champion. The contest got messed up last time we tried it. So Nick and i posted our articles against each other here.

[NICKinDALLAS]

What Jays said is good too

[BaldBil]

Sound like good, dirty, eye-gouging fun!