You Can't Blame the Wang...Or Can You?

Yes, many pitchers are painfully unathletic, but in the famed words of the Ladies' Man, "You can't blame the wang!"

American League pitchers aren't exactly conditioned to be doing exerting cardiovascular workouts like running the bases, so it is no surprise that one came up lame recently.

Hank Steinbrenner is absolutely livid about the whole situation involving Chien-Ming Wang and his recently injured foot, and is calling for serious rule changes, suggesting that the NL should get update their archaic rules and implement the DH.

I, personally, am in the camp of doing things the old-fashioned way and making pitchers hit. I suggest that the exact opposite change be made: abolish the designated hitter. Those guys are all baseball players out there; they should be able to swing a bat and run 90 feet without rupturing a groin.

Besides, the DH takes away from the purity and the strategy of the game. The DH is also quite out of shape, and as a result limited to the friendly confines of the dugout for much of the season.

These guys are professional athletes! They all grew up running and fielding and batting and playing other positions! Why give out-of-shape players free passes and allow them to specialize?

I enjoy seeing players like Micah Owings changing the course of the game with a monstrous home run to help his own cause. I enjoy the little things that make differences in games like double-switches and pinch-hits, in which one manager can play chess against the other in order to try and gain the upper hand.

Sure, there would be a few less home runs hit, a few more pitchers' hamstrings pulled and a few more irked managers and owners, but that makes players more accountable for the well-being of their bodies, and keeps managers more accountable for making the right lineup-card scribblings.

And maybe, just maybe, it would stuff a sock in certain owners' mouths who cry bloody murder on the league when their $218 million team underachieves.