American League or National League Fan?

Most people aren’t fans of a specific league, and those who are are fans of the league their favorite team is in.

I know I for one don’t care one way or another. Assuming (safely) that the Orioles aren’t in the world series my rooting interest is the following.

Not the Yankees or Sox
Team containing the most former Orioles
Team containing the higher number of my fantasy players
Least annoying fan base

I generally like to root for teams with young players on them such as Tampa Bay or Atlanta

I grew up a Mets fan but more than two decades ago, in close succession, I joined an AL only fantasy league, which is still going strong, and moved to North Texas and became a Rangers fan. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the NL but it just can’t be to the same level of depth as I get into for the AL between my league, the Rangers, and now going regularly to Frisco Roughriders games as well. By the way. Go Rangers!

I find the NL to boring to watch. I rather watch the Orioles and Mariners play than the Phillies and Giants.

*too

AL – rather have a DH in both leagues than having a pitcher hit

Love my Indians. Second is the Tampa Bay Rays. I just love how they run their organization and develop their own talent. I am an American League fan as well. I cheer for the AL in the AS game and in the world series. WS is difficult to cheer for the Yankees though.

If there is a DH, fine, DH in both leagues. If the pitcher hits, fine, pitchers hit in both leagues. I think it is really dumb that it is split. And honestly, I think the DH rule makes teams like the Yankees benefit even more. They can pay 20M for CC, and then 15M more for a DH. While it isnt fun to see the pitcher hit, it makes the game more complete. Look, these guys are athletes getting paid millions of dollars. If you get 10M and arent able to lay down a bunt, you dont deserve that 10M. I said this above, but the Dodgers had 53 sacrifice hits from their pitchers. 53! Thats a lot of guys moving from 1st to 2nd, or 2nd to 3rd, now in scoring position, or better scoring position, for the rest of the lineup. Also, pitchers hitting make the game more low scoring, high tension. A slugfest is fun, but after a while, didnt you get bored scoring 15 runs in a video game? Isnt it the same thing? Im sorry, but I take the 1-0 or 2-1 games that I see nearly daily with the NL West

I’m an NL fan, but it isn’t so much DH vs. no DH – but rather the style of play created by the lack of a DH that I like. NL baseball is more SB, sac bunts, suicide squeeze, hit and run, “earning” one run rather than waiting for a 3 run dinger. I also find the pitching duels in the NL better – the lack of a DH creates that (note: I’m not saying NL pitchers are better). It’s the style of baseball that I prefer to watch.

Grew up a NYM/NL fan so that sort of stays with you. That affinity probably isn’t as strong as it used to be but it still exists.

But beyond that, it continues and is reinforced by the introduction of the DH (Hate it) and the fact that even 2-1 games seem to take forever in the AL. I mean I know the obvious NYY/BoSox length-fests bring the average up, but, even beyond that, the league as a whole has a slower pace to it which seems virtually across the board except for those occasions when Mark Buerhle is pitching.

End of story.

I was a Braves and Tigers fan pre-DH (and pre-Atlanta) but am now a Jays’ fan. I very much prefer AL ball, and find many of the arguments here to be unresearched. I’ll call out Joe Morgan on this too, as he uses many of the same on the air, so maybe many believe him.

It isn’t true that a pitcher having to hit acts as a deterrent to hitting batters. The fact is, of 1549 hit batsmen in 2010, only 20, or just over 1%, were pitchers, The reality is that if you hit my guy, I’ll go after one of your better hitters – why waste an easy out by hitting a pitcher?

Littleball? It’s true that the AL sacrifices less than the NL, but that’s only because pitchers can’t hit. In 2010, the AL sacrificed 542 times, while the NL sacrificed 1002 times. But 617 NL sacs were by pitchers, leaving only 385 by non-pitchers. Over 60% of the league’s sacrifices were from one position in the batting order (LaRussa’s shenanigans aside.) That tells me what we already know – the manager calls for a sac bunt because that’s all the pitcher’s good for, and in my mind that’s just not entertaining. The reality is that when the bases-outs-score dictates a bunt, the AL is more likely than the NL to sacrifice, by a decent margin.

Somebody mentioned that the AL tends to sit back and wait for the 3-run homer – maybe he read Earl Weaver’s book, but it hasn’t been like that since the “Oriole Way” was a real way. In 2010, The AL and NL stole exactly the same number of bases: 2044. I don’t have hit-and-run stats, but would guess that they’re about even too. The point is that there isn’t really much difference between how the two leagues play, except for the 9-spot.

That’s actually the spot that bugs me. Pitchers have simply become hopeless hitters. They actually weren’t half bad in the 50’s and 60’s, but were in the process of getting bad, and have gotten worse. Knowing that there’s a black hole coming up, or that the manager’s going to have to ask for the one-out automatic sac bunt, that’s the thing that I’ve hated ever since there became an option to not have to watch it.

By the way, I agree that the double switch is probably beyond the capability of the average 10-year-old, as somebody suggested. But it’s hardly a subject of superior intellect, and certainly not a strategem that excites me. The result is that you often weaken the team at two positions, and as a paying customer who wants to see the best players play, it bugs me when I see a good player taken out of the game for a lesser player just because the nine spot is due up. Hitting for the pitcher generally bugs me, especially when he’s throwing well, but the home team needs a run and the manager thinks that the .230-hitting utility guy has a better chance to drive it in than the .160-hitting pitcher. I’d love to see stats on how often that actually works to get the run in, and how often the reliever ends up coughing it up after the unsuccessful pinch hit.

The only thing missing in the AL game is the heightened manager involvement surrounding a typically weak spot in the order. Not that what the NL guy does is rocket science, and he has a “book” that’s so consistent that everybody in the park knows what’s coming (be honest, NL guys – when was the last time you were surprised by a double switch, or by a pitcher laying one down?) but ultimately, we have to concede that NL managers have to manage more. I guess if I came to the park to watch somebody manage, I’d see some value in it, but since “managing” usually means a predictable maneuver that ends with poorer players on the field, I’m not at all fond of the whole thing.

The guy who suggested that all players pitch kind of had a point. You’re asking a player to do something he’s not physically equipped to do. A couple of people correctly jumped on that as nonsensical. It is of course just as nonsensical as asking a pitcher to contribute offensively, which it seems he’s just as ill-equipped to do as having the shortstop pitch.