Commish for a Day: What I Would Change in MLB with My Day in Office

Everybody's thought about what they would change in baseball if they had the power. Well today, I'm being selfish and giving myself the power to do so. Assuming nobody had any power to stop me from doing anything I wanted, and all these rules would be implemented immediately, this is how my day would go.

As I get to my new office around 7 AM (wouldn't want to be late for my only day on the job, would I) the first thing I would do is one of the most important. I would abolish the Designated Hitter from the A.L.

This couldn't be done right away, however, so a five-year plan sounds best. This would give all teams the ability to plan for not having a DH. I have had enough with these one-dimensional players becoming stars in the A.L. and all those guys hanging on an extra year or two even though they can't play the field anymore. 

Baseball should be an all-around sport and not only does this force hitters to learn how to play the field but it forced pitchers to become decent hitters, or at least make them learn how to bunt.

While I'm at it, no pitchers may run the bases in a jacket. Everyone needs to be wearing the same uniform on the outside, they may have a jacket inside their jersey but not on the outside.

Next I would raise the pitchers mound back to 15 inches. Games that end 10-9 may be flashier, but I want to see these games get back to the way they were. Plus, this would probably enable pitchers to pitch more than the five or six inning start and we would start seeing those complete game numbers rise back to adequate rates.

To make up for this on the offensive side, outfield fences would need to be a minimum 400 feet to all fields. No more of this 320 foot home runs down the line. Speed would once again rule the day, as you would need people to track down those fly balls to the wall and to take that extra base on what would be a single now-a-days.

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