Compilers of Strat-O-Matic oddities will have this one to watch for in next year's game:
Alex Avila, thirdbase-4, e48. The game's lowest ratings for fielding and range; assigned per SOM rules to players who must, due to injury or substitution, play an unfamiliar position that's not on their cards.
American League teams lose the DH when they play in National League parks. Jim Leyland, to keep Avila's bat in the lineup, felt the risk of starting him at third was worth it.
The ball found Avila soon enough; in the third inning. His throwing error allowed Seth Smith, who had tripled, to score.
But the score was already 6-1, Rick Porcello was getting hammered, and the misplay had no effect on the outcome.
At the end of four quarters: two field goals for the Lions, one coming on Jhonny Peralta's grand slam, to two TDs and one missed extra point for the Broncos.
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When American League teams play interleague games on the road, they lose their DH, their pitchers have to bat, and the other team's pitchers have been hitting all season.
When National League teams play on the road, they get to add an extra bat to their lineup.
Despite being at a rules disadvantage, American League teams started 2011 with 161 more wins than National League teams in interleague play.
Offices of the League presidents were abolished a long time ago. Umpires now work games in both leagues. Same strike zone in each. At least on paper. But the egalitarian efforts of Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig to homogenize the MLB product as if it was fast food go out the window when the DH is considered.
One league has it, the other doesn't. Rather than standardize the thing -- make one give it up or the other adopt it -- interleague play got the okay despite the rules inequality that favored the non-DH league over the league that used it.
American League pitching stats must be viewed in the context of having a hitter in the ninth spot where, in the National League, there's usually an automatic out. With no need to hit for the pitcher, strategy is de-emphasized in the American League. Players who play many positions, and can hit, are more valuable in the National League as halves of double-switches. One-dimensional players ("pure hitters"), and veterans whose fielding skills have faded, find a haven in the American League.
I always liked the differences. A standardized world can become boring, even though the Wendy's double combo you order in California tastes the same as the one consumed back in Michigan. No small miracle, that. How IS it possible?
But I thought, in Chancellor Selig's baseball New World Order, the game wasn't a la carte, and no variations were allowed.
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