Paul Sullivan: To DH or not to DH? Baseball's never-ending debate starts anew
No modern-day baseball owner is as outspoken as former A's owner Charlie Finley, who decades ago proposed using orange baseballs, playing World Series games at night and using pinch hitters in the pitcher's spot in the lineup.
The orange-balls idea never flew, and World Series games now are played too late for most younger fans to watch.
But the pinch-hitter thing worked, at least in the American League. Finley argued back in the early 1970s that fans wanted to see more offense.
"I can't think of anything more boring than to see a pitcher come up, when the average pitcher couldn't hit my grandmother," he said. "Let's have a permanent pinch hitter for the pitcher."
