The move ends the National League’s 48-year run that forced pitchers to take at-bats.
A. No one forced the pitchers to hit.
B. Prior to 1973 neither the American nor the National league allowed a designated hitter. I think to the concept was totally foreign to baseball. Further research notes that “The designated hitter idea was raised by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack in 1906 though he was not the first to propose it”. Nothing happened about it until the late 1960s
Oh, and some pitchers can hit.
From wiki
On April 4, 2021, an American League team voluntarily declined to use a designated hitter in their starting lineup for the first time since 1976, when the Los Angeles Angels placed their starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani second in the batting order. This was also the first time since 1903 that a pitcher had been listed as the second hitter in the starting lineup.
On June 23, 2021, Ohtani made history again when for the first time ever an AL team did not use the designated hitter and an NL team did. His Los Angeles Angels declined the DH privilege, while the visiting San Francisco Giants opted to use it, starting Alex Dickerson at DH.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_hitter