Now impersonating an actual ballplayer, your AL pitcher!

American League managers have instructed their pitchers to take every pitch when playing in a National League game. "Take" as in "stand there with the bat on your shoulder and watch the ball as it crosses the plate." Whether this is a dictum only for these final Spring Training matchups or, as I fear, something that will endure throughout the season, I don't know. What I do know is that it's a travesty, a mockery of baseball as it should be played, a disrespecting of the AL pitchers who at least at one time were real ballplayers, and why I HATE HATE HATE the whole idea of the "designated hitter." Bah! A pox on all those AL houses. Shame on you.