You might think, as a player known much more for his bat than for his glove, that Mark McGwire would have an appreciation for the designated hitter rule. That, however, is not the case.
“We should do away with the DH and we should get back to the pitchers hitting (in the American League) and make it a serious game,” McGwire said, via Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “But I’ve always thought that. I was never a fan of the DH anyway.
“The game is so much better when the pitcher has to hit. The strategy … you really have to understand your bullpen as far as who can and who can’t pitch that certain day.”
That’s not the only thing McGwire has an opinion on. He thinks the league is too big, and wants interleague play thrown away.
“If they ever did expansion, again, oh, my God, this game would be so thin,” said McGwire. “It really would be the worst thing we could do in baseball.
“We should lose two teams. We could have normal scheduling. Fourteen teams in each league. And we could take out the interleague play for a few years.”
The designated hitter rule is still controversial. Even current players aren’t in agreement on it. It seems inevitable that, eventually, both leagues will end up playing by the same rules — and the fact is, McGwire probably won’t be happy with the eventual outcome.
