The debate of whether a DH should be elected to the Hall of Fame is starting to heat up.
By The Associated Press

Thirty years ago, the proprietors of baseball decided to fiddle with a product that had worked perfectly well for about a century. And so, they invented the designated hitter, a wrong-headed gimmick from the get-go.

It was a quick fix, like grabbing a fast food burger and fries for lunch with no concern for the long-term impact.

Welcome to impact time.

Next year’s candidates for the Hall of Fame include Paul Molitor, equipped with 3,319 hits and a .306 batting average for 21 seasons. A couple of years later comes Harold Baines, a .289 career hitter with 384 home runs and 1,628 RBIs for 22 seasons.

Solid credentials – and not a Gold Glove between them. That’s because for long stretches of their careers, Molitor and Baines were offensive specialists, designated hitters free of any defensive responsibilities. They are the first mainly DH guys to appear on Cooperstown’s doorstep, and more are on the way.

Edgar Martinez, Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas are all still active and productive. All three have appropriate offensive numbers. Martinez is a .317 career hitter who is closing in on 300 homers and 1,200 RBIs. Palmeiro passed 500 homers and 1,600 RBIs this season. Thomas reached 2,000 hits.

All, however, will arrive at Cooperstown’s doorstep with the DH albatross – the perception that in some ways, they were half-players, who didn’t have to worry about playing defense. That’s unfair to them. They are products of the flawed system.

Martinez defends his role.

“The DH is a big part of the team and a big part of the offense,” he said. “I think the DH contributes to the team as much as pitchers and relievers. They have limited roles, too, and they get a chance to go to the Hall of Fame.

“A DH plays and contributes to a team every day. Then you have relievers and pitchers who don’t contribute on a daily basis. It makes you wonder why … there’s no (DH in Cooperstown) yet.”

Martinez figures that will change with Molitor.

“He was one of the best in the game,” Martinez said. “He had an awesome career. He contributed to a team in a big way everywhere he played. He was a great offensive hitter, one of the best. He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.”

Martinez started out at third base, then switched to the DH. Palmeiro and Thomas were first basemen for most of their careers. Palmeiro even won a Gold Glove in 1999, despite starting 128 games at DH that year. That tells you less about his defense than it does about the Gold Glove voting.

Palmeiro still plays some defense these days but recognizes that on the young Rangers, he is primarily a full-time DH with rookie Mark Teixeira the usual first baseman. He doesn’t think the halfway nature of the job should legislate against his Cooperstown credentials.

“Since the DH is a position on a team, there should be … I don’t know if the word “exception’ would be the word … but the DH has been around for 30 years now,” he said. “There should be a position in the Hall of Fame for a DH.

“Edgar Martinez has been the best DH in baseball pretty much since the beginning of the DH, and has done most of his damage as a DH.

“I think that he deserves to be a Hall of Famer.”

Thomas is aware of the DH bias.

“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “I played 10 solid years in the field and I still can play in the field. I played it this year, and I’m sure I will in the future. I’m not going to be limited to DHing the rest of my career. I think that will be addressed by the end of this year.

“I would definitely like to play more in the field. I don’t think that was a problem earlier. I’m the best fit for the DH right now, but you just never know what the future holds.”

The first DH was an otherwise innocent first baseman named Ron Blomberg, who became the answer to a trivia quiz because he was with the Yankees and they happened to play the first game on opening day in 1973.

Not at all sure about this new idea, Blomberg sought some help from coach Elston Howard. “I went up to Ellie and asked what I was supposed to do,” Blomberg said. “He said, “Go hit and then sit down.’

“I said, “Oh, it’s like a glorified pinch hitter.”‘

For the record, Blomberg drew a bases-loaded walk against Luis Tiant and became an instant footnote in baseball history, eventually showing up in “Trivial Pursuit,” and as a $125,000 question on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

“Nobody knew what it would be or how long it would be,” he said. “I never thought it would last. I thought it was a gimmick. But everywhere I go now, everyone remembers I was the first DH.”

AP-ES-08-13-03 2050EDT