Free Republic

Joe Maddon selected an adjective usually applied to a gallon of milk. Then again, for all the romance that surrounds the sport, baseball is a consumer product too. “Once you eradicate National League rules, then everything becomes homogenized,” the Angels manager said. With the adoption of the designated hitter in both leagues this year, and with the expansion of interleague play next year, Major League Baseball is giving their consumers what the league believes they want. The National League dates to 1876, the oldest surviving professional sports league in the world, according to MLB historian John Thorn. The American League...

On Thursday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the designated hitter is expected to be coming to the National League in 2022. Whether or not you’re a fan of the move, it’s certainly the end of an era. Personally, I will welcome it with open arms as it will certainly benefit the Dodgers. They’ll be able to shuffle guys in the lineup and get guys off their feet. With that being said, there is one thing in particular I’ll miss more than anything. Clayton Kershaw’s sacrifice bunts. Not only was Kershaw the best pitcher of the last decade, but he was...

Extending the designated hitter to the National League and controversial extra-inning rules threaten to complicate an already bizarre 60-game MLB season.At a moment when much of the nation remains in turmoil, so too is America’s National Pastime. After a long hiatus brought on by the coronavirus, baseball is finally returning, but with some significant changes.Major League Baseball is set to implement a shortened, 60-game season scheduled to begin the week of July 20. The move comes after months of negotiations between MLB owners and the players association, during which each side attempted to wrangle more financial concessions from the other...

Major League Baseball announced Wednesday that there could be many potential rule changes applied to both the American and National Leagues. One of these potential rule changes is adding the universal designated hitter (also referred to as “DH”). This would take pitchers out of NL lineups and replace them with a hitter of the manager’s choice. The AL implemented the DH in 1973, but the NL has always stayed away from it until now. This has been one of the most frequently talked about topics over the years. So let’s take a look at why the the universal designated hitter...

According to ESPN's Jayson Stark, Major League Baseball is on the verge of making two rules changes that could only be described as ground-breaking. In a report filed on Friday, Stark says that the league's competition committee reportedly agreed to alter the strike zone and eliminate the four-pitch intentional walk during their meetings with owners this week. Those two changes could be implemented as early as the 2017 season. The strike zone is currently defined as the volume of space above home plate and between the batter's knees and the midpoint of their torso. Of course, if you asked most...

The change: Implement the designated hitter rule in the National League. How it would work: The DH rule would be in effect for all professional games in every league at all levels -- with no exceptions. I spent most of my front-office career in the National League, and have always preferred the game played without the DH rule. I like the late-inning strategies, the double-switches and deciding whether to take out your best pitcher when you're tied or down a run. I also like the fact that the bench and bullpens are more important in game strategy without a DH....

The momentum that has pushed Carly Fiorina to second place among Republican presidential candidates was evident in Lancaster County Thursday night. About 200 midstate voters attended a private fundraiser hosted by Ron and Hollee Kreider at their countryside estate in Manheim Township, where the price tag was $1,000 per couple or $5,000 to be on the host committee. -snip- Of special interest to Lancaster voters is her stance on immigration. Many farmers in the midstate rely on migrant labor. One farmer in the audience asked her how she would handle immigration. "(The farmer) said, 'We could put ads in the...

Barbara Boxer, the senator from California, leaned over her press secretary, Peter True, as he sat at an HP desktop computer and tried to find an old campaign ad from 2010. Boxer wanted me to see the ad because it featured interviews with former employees of HP who had been laid off by the storied technology company’s one-time CEO, Carly Fiorina, who in 2010 challenged Boxer for her seat and now, five years later, seeks the Republican nomination for a somewhat higher office: president of the United States. -snip- Fiorina was, in Boxer’s telling, a monstrously greedy businesswoman who would...

For over three decades, Carly Fiorina's bachelor's degree from Stanford University in medieval history and philosophy has had little real-world application. But as she mounts a presidential bid, the Republican candidate says her degree is finally of use as she considers how she would deal with ISIS as commander-in-chief. "Finally my degree in medieval history and philosophy has come in handy," Fiorina said Sunday night, "because what ISIS wants to do is drive us back to the Middle Ages, literally." Fiorina was responding to a question from a member of the military at a town hall in Windham, New Hampshire,...

Amid conflicting reports about Moscow targeting U.S.-alllied groups in Syria, GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said late Wednesday that she backs military readiness against Russian forces. “I believe we must tell the Russians that we will conduct [and] we will secure a no-fly zone around anti-Assad rebel forces that we’re supporting,” she said on Fox News’s "Hannity." “Does that mean we might use force against Russian jets?” host Sean Hannity then asked. “Well, hopefully not,” Fiorina responded. "Hopefully, if we are signaling clearly to the Russians are intention, it will not come to that.” “But if it does come to...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina may not be a liberal, but she certainly appears to be a fan of the liberal arts. The 2016 contender said Monday that her college degree in medieval history made her uniquely qualified to combat ISIS and other terrorist groups. “My degree in medieval history and philosophy has come in handy,” Fiorina said at a town hall in Windham, N.H., “because what ISIS wants to do is drive us back to the Middle Ages, literally.”

Carly Fiorina received a BA from Stanford in medieval history and philosophy almost 40 years ago, but she’s always ready to revisit her undergraduate glory days. Last Sunday, the Republican presidential candidate tried to burnish her national security credentials by claiming that her bachelor’s degree prepared her to fight Isis. She said: “Finally my degree in medieval history and philosophy has come in handy, because what Isis wants to do is drive us back to the Middle Ages, literally”. I’d like to state unequivocally that my years of training to become a professor of medieval history in no way make...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina shot back at a Washington Post story stating that her 2010 Senate campaign mismanaged its finances, including not giving a final paycheck to the widow of her pollster, who died a month before Election Day. According to MSNBC, Fiorina assailed "the left and their allies in the media" for the story, which was based on more than two dozen interviews with staff members, friends, contractors and operatives who worked on the 2010 Senate campaign. All said there was a huge problem with the operation: It didn't manage money well. Fiorina said Monday that The Post...

If you’re not ready for the designated hitter to be part of National League baseball, your time to get ready is getting shorter by the day. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and more than that, it’s a matter of how.

Major League Baseball has expanded its pool of postseason teams to 10 -- up from four just 19 years ago -- and next year will re-align into 15-team leagues that make for at least one interleague series all season long. But the biggest change of all may be around the next corner: the end of baseball as it was originally designed. "I would be shocked if 10 years from now there's not a DH in both leagues," said one influential baseball source.