Imrem: DH needs to stay out of NL

Uh-oh, better hide all the women, children and baseball traditionalists indoors.

Trouble is a-brewin' again.

Reports last week indicated that the designated hitter is threatening to come to a National League ballpark near you.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred dropped a hint and raised a trial balloon: NL owners might be weakening in their distaste for the DH.

Two things are assumed about the news.

First, Chicago Cubs slugger Kyle Schwarber is the player who would benefit the most if the NL adopted the DH rule.

Second, Schwarber is the player who would dislike it the most if the NL adopted the same DH rule that the AL has had since 1973.

OK, maybe each of those is more a guess than a fact.

First, maybe other players in Major League Baseball would be more suited than Schwarber to be designated hitters.

Second, maybe Schwarber would prefer becoming a one-dimensional player who could spend most of a game in the clubhouse smoking cigarettes, chowing down on doughnuts and phoning his stock broker.

Under the DH rule, Schwarber would be out of sight except for those 4 at-bats and 15 minutes - that long only if he reached base at least once - he would be on the field.

But the impression that Schwarber left us with after his 2015 rookie season was that he is the kind of athlete who would want to be more than a 15-minutes-of-fame-per-game kind of guy.

All of which magnifies one of the many problems with the designated hitter rule: The DH turns select players - whether they like it or not - into half-athletes.

Baseball players have a hard enough time being categorized with players in football, basketball and hockey.

Some pitchers look like big tubs of guts on the mound. Some left fielders look like they haven't moved a muscle all season. Some second basemen look like they could use a bowl of steroids for breakfast.

Seriously, sometimes some baseball players are more like golfers who can perform with a little bit of a belly after pouring a big bit of beer into themselves the night before.

But for a century or so, even those baseball players had to figure out how to play both sides of the ball if they wanted to be big-leaguers.

As great as some Hall of Famers were as hitters, before the DH they had to play a position on defense to be more than a pinch hitter at an advanced age.

If they were outfielders, catchers or third basemen, they might have moved to first base to prolong their careers.

Then the American League instituted the designated hitter in 1973 and, say, a Frank Thomas was allowed to become one-sided.

Thomas could have continued to be a full-time first baseman. But he declined out of fear of embarrassing himself in the field, and the DH gave him a way out.

Schwarber - a big, stocky, powerful man built like a linebacker - doesn't seem to be similarly inclined.

For now, Schwarber is working his rock-solid butt off to earn the privilege of cracking the Cubs' lineup as a catcher or left fielder.

Schwarber is a good enough athlete with a good enough work ethic to eventually succeed on defense.

My goodness, what a shame it would be if Schwarber in his early 20s was converted to designated hitter.

It would be like telling Elton John that he can sing but he might as well stop practicing on the piano.

Better that the American League ditch the designated hitter rule than the National League adopt it.

mimrem@dailyherald.com