Kuzul

A hotly contested topic among the baseball world in the past week (and for quite some time now) has been whether or not the National League should change its rules to institute the use of the designated hitter. The American League adopted the DH in 1973, yet the Senior Circuit has remained surprisingly resilient through the years.

However, National League owners may be under increased pressure to make a change.

The debate was jump-started when St. Louis Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright, one of the elite starting pitchers in the MLB, tore his Achilles tendon running out of the batter’s box after putting the ball in play. The club announced that he would miss the rest of the season, which is a crippling blow to a St. Louis squad trying to advance to the NLCS for the fifth consecutive year.

Washington Nationals hurler Max Scherzer was the first to rally behind Wainwright’s banner. He told Jon Heyman of CBS Sports that he would not be opposed to bringing the DH to the National League, saying that it would be a great way to increase scoring and make the game more entertaining.

“If you look at it from the macro side, who’d people rather see hit—Big Papi or me?” Scherzer said. “Who would people rather see, a real hitter hitting home runs or a pitcher swinging a wet newspaper? Both leagues need to be on the same set of rules.”

This logic makes sense from Mad Max—having a designated hitter batting instead of a pitcher would make the game more fun to watch and ostensibly give the fans more bang for their buck. But his initial claims were met with a flurry of other opinions, and most weren’t in agreement with his.

Madison Bumgarner was the first to publicly disagree. The San Francisco Giants left-hander also happens to be one of the best hitting pitchers in the league, and he was not afraid to come down hard on Scherzer.

This was his comment to Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News about the Wainwright injury and the possibility of the DH entering National League play:

What if he got hurt pitching? Should we say he can’t pitch anymore? I hate what happened to him. He works his butt off out there. But I don’t think it was because he was hitting. What if he gets hurt getting out of his truck? You tell him not to drive anymore? That’s the way the game has to be played. I appreciate both sides of the argument and I get it. But [ending pitcher plate appearances] isn’t the way to go about [addressing] it.

That is an excellent point as well. It was an Achilles injury that Wainwright suffered. If that part of his body was going to tear, it could have been anywhere. He could just as easily have injured it pitching off the mound or covering first base as he did jogging out of the box.

One of Bumgarner‘s teammates, Jake Peavy, gave another reason why the designated hitter must stay away. He began by talking about a situation last year when Bumgarner hit against the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Zack Greinke in the eighth inning. It was late in the season in a crucial situation, and manager Bruce Bochy didn’t have to go to a pinch hitter and then a reliever. 

“We have a distinct advantage because of what he can do at the plate,” Peavy said, per Baggarly. “We’d take a ton of strategy out of our game. The bench player is so much more important a part of the game. Managers have their say in how the game is played out.

“As pitchers, it’s about taking pride in batting and baserunning and getting a bunt down or putting it in play. If you do that better than the other pitcher, you’ve got an advantage.”

For Scherzer, even his own general manager is not on his side. Nationals GM Mike Rizzo—who gave Scherzer a $210 million contract this offseason—went on record against the DH earlier this week.

Rizzo was very adamant on a Wednesday radio appearance he made on 106.7 The Fan that he will never favor the DH.

I hate the DH. I always have hated the DH. I would hate to see the DH in the National League, and I love the National League brand of baseball. Now, I worked with the Chicago White Sox for years, and the Boston Red Sox for years in the American League, and I’m a much bigger fan of the National League style of play, with the pitcher pitching and all the strategy that that employs. 

That’s my favorite part of this whole argument. The phrase “the strategy it employs.” Personally, that is one of the things I enjoy about the game of baseball. The managers competing in a chess match throughout the ballgame is arguably the most compelling thing about baseball and the main reason I like the National League better than the American League.

In the American League, the manager does not have nearly as many factors to worry about, most notably pinch hitting for the pitcher. To illustrate this, I’ll introduce a common situation in baseball. 

Let’s say Team A is winning by two runs in the seventh inning and the pitcher is due up next with runners on first and second with one out. The manager has a tough decision on his hands: Does he leave the pitcher in the game to pitch another inning even though it likely means they won’t tack on any runs that inning, or does he elect to use a pinch hitter in an attempt to add some cushion to the lead even though that move will result in leaning heavily on the bullpen to finish the game?

An American League manager is never faced with this dilemma. All he has to do is monitor the pitcher, and when he gets tired or ineffective, put in a reliever.

The Junior Circuit also does not incorporate nearly as many situational pitching changes or as much bunting as the National League does.

Now some fans don’t really care much about some of the finer points of the game—they prefer to see guys hit the ball as far as they can in high-scoring games, and that is perfectly fine. They can stick with the American League, but the NL does not need to change its rulebook to satisfy those fans.

The final witness in this trial is someone who should know better than anyone. Cubs manager Joe Maddon has spent time in both leagues, and even though he has only been in Chicago for a few months, he has already adapted the National League style of play and is against bringing the DH to the NL.

“That’s part of the game,” Maddon said, via the Chicago Tribune, about Wainwright’s injury. “That’s the way it works. It’s unfortunate. It stinks. I like the National League the way it sets. It’s a really interesting baseball game.”

Ultimately, it will be up to NL owners on whether or not they eventually adopt the DH. They might do it sometime in the future, but they don’t need to. Their brand of baseball is more of a traditional style of play, and contrary to popular belief there are still some old-fashioned baseball fans out there who have the attention spans to watch an entire game even if substitutions and pitching changes are involved.

In my opinion, the game is much better with all nine fielders hitting for themselves. It forces players to be more well-rounded, and it makes it more interesting from a strategy standpoint. Also, it results in more intriguing scouting, as pitchers handy with the bat continue to become more and more rare. As the Giants do right now with Bumgarner, NL teams with pitchers who can hit have a tremendous advantage over their opponents, and that is nothing to sneeze at.

Either way, this is a very polarizing debate. Each side has its pros and cons, and baseball pundits, coaches and players are obviously not afraid to state their case.

Bumgarner, Peavy, Rizzo and Maddon are for the DH staying the heck away from the National League, and I wholeheartedly agree with their arguments.

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LOS ANGELES – Gone are the days of pure hatred, the ones that caused Jackie Robinson to retire rather than play for the rival club, incited epic brawls and sparked beanball wars.

But the rivalry is not dead. Far from it. The fire still exists, as does the success.

Between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, five division titles and three World Series championships have been won in the last five seasons. Each team has had a National League MVP in the last three seasons and a combined five Cy Young Awards in the last seven.

They also play in two of the more gorgeous ballparks in the game—one with an aged charm nestled in a mountainous backdrop, the other a state-of-the-art joint sitting on a bay.

“They have a great place there, but so do we,” Dodgers outfielder Scott Van Slyke said Sunday, two days before the Dodgers’ trip to San Francisco for the teams’ first meeting this season on Tuesday. 

Three World Series runs in five years by the Giants and three consecutive division titles by the Dodgers have given this rivalry a new bounce in its step. But because players shuttle from one team to another on a yearly basis and guys become offseason acquaintances, some of the heat has been extracted from every major league rivalry.

This one is no different, as the two teams have a combined 22 players that are either brand new or relatively new to the rivalry. And aside from Yasiel Puig and maybe Madison Bumgarner, there really are no players on either side that extract authentic venom from the other side, since Buster Posey and Clayton Kershaw are more vanilla superstars.

“Obviously there’s a rivalry,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “You can feel it. There’s intensity that’s different when we play them. 

“As far as players changing teams, that happens all over baseball. So every rivalry is going to feel the turnover. But the fans never change sides.”

And that is where any rivalry truly lives—in the stands, in the bars, among the diehards.

While there have been rare and extreme examples of this rivalry tragically spilling into the fandom—the Bryan Stow beating and the stabbing fatality of Jonathan Denver—fans now argue about things like the Dodgers trying to “buy” a title, or the Giants getting “lucky” in October, and of course, which stadium is a better place to take in a ballgame.

These debates are never truly settled, but Giants fans currently hold the trump card with those three championships that have turned Dodger fans into short-term lovers of the Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals over the last five Octobers.

Sitting in the stands of these games, particularly in the outfield bleachers of either stadium, you understand the fervor. While fans usually refrain from wasting beer or souvenirs on players, they loudly spew their hatred with insults aimed at outfielders. And inning after inning, as the visiting team’s fans dare to move about the other team’s stadium, they endure insults unfit for juvenile ears.

“They definitely get a little meaner up there than in other cities,” Van Slyke said of patrolling the outfield at AT&T Park. “And I’m sure their guys hear it when they come here, too.”

The rivalry will evolve in the coming years. The Dodgers and Giants are both pulling in revenue at incredible levels, and while the Dodgers’ ownership has shown a complete willingness to spend it, the Giants’ ownership group has been more reluctant, although they still have a current payroll north of $170 million.

The Dodgers spent part of their last offseason acquiring front-office people to run their club. Andrew Friedman left the Tampa Bay Rays to become the Dodgers president of baseball operations. He then brought in a team of others to fall in line behind him, and together, they are seen as one of the brightest, most analytical front offices in the game today.

Meanwhile, the Giants, known to have a more traditionally run front office, recently reworked their configuration to make former GM Brian Sabean the team’s executive VP of baseball ops through 2019 and former assistant GM Bobby Evans the new GM. Assuming the Giants’ top brass gives the go-ahead to spend more money to keep up with their rivals in the near future, Sabean and Evans will remain the men who determine which players the team will invest in. 

The game’s economics make roster turnover a part of the sport as much as bat flips and beer, but that does not mean rivalries cannot remain heated. And when both teams are fighting for the same kind of success, it is bound to remain as such.

This week’s three-game series in San Francisco is the latest chapter in what has become one of the sport’s best rivalries, on and off the field.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Madison Bumgarner‘s pitching performance for the San Francisco Giants in the 2014 MLB postseason entitles him to do pretty much whatever he wants in San Francisco.

That includes riding a horse around AT&T Park before a game.

At the Giants’ 2015 home opener Monday, Bumgarner hopped on a horse to deliver the World Series banner.

It’s only fitting that the Giants’ workhorse delivered the championship banner in this fashion.

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The San Francisco Giants embark on the 2015 campaign with one goal in mind: They want to defend their World Series title and win it again.

The baseball season is a long, arduous process, which makes the Giants’ three world championships in the past five years a tremendous accomplishment.

On paper, there are teams that look better than the Giants, but that was also the case in 2010, 2012 and 2014, when the Giants won it all. Fortunately, the game is not played on paper, and there are injuries and other intangibles that factor into whether a team is ultimately successful.

Looking at the 2015 team, two key players, Pablo Sandoval and Michael Morse, have departed. The Giants have replaced Sandoval with Casey McGehee, who was acquired in a trade with the Miami Marlins. McGehee is a solid hitter and decent defensive player, so the loss of Sandoval is minimized.

McGehee does not have Sandoval’s power, as he hit only four home runs last season, compared to Sandoval’s 16. However, McGehee actually had more RBI, as he contributed 76, compared to 73 for Sandoval.

The Giants will miss Morse, however, as he carried the team early in the season and came up with some huge hits in the postseason. Morse hit 16 home runs and drove in 61 runs during the regular season.

Nori Aoki was signed as a free agent and will get the opportunity to replace Morse. He is a completely different type of player. Aoki has good speed, is a good contact hitter and gets on base. His OBP last year was .360. Although not great, Aoki is a better defensive player than Morse.

The Giants hope the assets that Aoki brings to San Francisco will offset his lack of power in comparison to Morse.

The key for the Giants, however, will come down to pitching. If the Giants pitch well and play good defense, they have shown an uncanny ability to win close games.

Let’s take a look at five key reasons to be optimistic heading into the 2015 season.

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A team’s fortunes over the course of a six-month season typically hinge on more than one factor, but depending on how critical said factor is, that one wild card can affect things greatly.

It can be a good or bad performance. It can be a health issue, for better or worse. It can be how a player bounces back from an injury or a poor previous season. It can even be how a player produces during the ever-important contract year.

Whatever the case or reason, these are players who can greatly impact their teams, their division races and even World Series chances depending on how they turn. That is why they become important pieces in determining how their league’s landscapes play out.

This year, there is no lack of such examples. Every team has at least a couple of these X-factors, and they have the potential to make or derail an entire season depending on how they break.

For 2015, these are some of the most important variables. Either way they go, they will all have a significant impact on their team’s year.

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San Francisco Giants pitcher and living American myth Madison Bumgarner continued adding to the tall tale that is his life by channeling Paul Bunyan for a photo shoot at spring training Monday.

The Giants tweeted an image of Bumgarner dressed up lumberjack style and standing next to an ox. According to the tweet, the shoot was for the Giants’ first issue of G-Mag for the 2015 season. I presume photographers asked him wear “whatever feels comfy.”

That is a large man standing next to a monstrous animal. I’m not sure what breed of ox this is, but if you look closely, Bumgarner’s face appears to be asking, “May I keep the beast?” I hope he hitches it up and rides it through town whistling the tune to “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

The best part is, this isn’t even close to the coolest thing MadBum has done involving wildlife.

Dan is on Twitter. He is unashamedly Googling ox breeds.

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The 2014 Major League Baseball season has been over for two months, but San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner is still reaping the rewards for his postseason heroics. On Tuesday, he was named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year.     

Per a release from Janie McCauley of The Associated Press, Bumgarner captured the honor ahead of two MLB players and the world’s best golfer:

Bumgarner finished first in a vote by U.S. editors and news directors. He beat out Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw—who won the National League Cy Young and MVP but lost to Bumgarner’s Giants in the playoffs. Retiring New York Yankees star Derek Jeter and golfer Rory McIlroy tied for third place.

Even though baseball is a team sport, Bumgarner was the single biggest difference-maker in the playoffs. The 25-year-old appeared in seven games, including a five-inning relief stint in Game 7 of the World Series against the Kansas City Royals on just two days of rest, throwing 52.2 innings with 45 strikeouts and six earned runs allowed, via Baseball-Reference.com. 

Bumgarner was also named the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year earlier this month. He told SI‘s Tom Verducci in a profile that a strong bout of homesickness after he was drafted in 2007 almost forced him out of baseball:

I was out of high school and had just turned 18 years old. I had been away from home a couple of times, but never more than a couple of days at a time, and I always had someone with me—family or friends, someone. I was out there by myself. I had no idea what to expect. Honestly, I contemplated just going home and choosing not to have this lifestyle because it was so different from what I was used to.

Even though Kansas City fans may not agree based on what happened in the World Series, there’s little doubt that Bumgarner made the right choice. All of these accolades, in addition to what happened on the field, show just how revered the young left-hander’s 2014 season was.  

Now, the only question is what Bumgarner does for an encore. Considering how much better he seems to be getting, there may not be a ceiling for him in 2015. 

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In life, and in sports, nearly everyone experiences prolonged periods of both success and failure. Of course, the 2014 sports year was far from different, as fans were treated to some truly memorable performances, of both the good and bad sort.

Madison Bumgarner, for example, had a downright iconic year, establishing himself as one of baseball’s all-time greats with the type of postseason pitching we’d never seen before.

In a similar vein, Russell Wilson led his Seahawks to the mountaintop and, in so doing, catapulted himself into the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks.

In contrast, however, Tiger Woods battled injury all year long and lost his spot atop golf’s world rankings, while Robert Griffin did the same and lost his stranglehold on the starting quarterback spot in Washington.

So, with these guys and others in mind, we’ve done our best to highlight 10 People/Teams in Sports who had the best/worst year ever.

We should note, we’ve dodged the heavier side of sports in 2014, excluding from our list major violators like Donald Sterling, Jameis Winston, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice and Roger Goodell.

Instead, then, we’ve explored those who struggled for non-legal reasons, and exalted the athletes who had a dream 2014.

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Imagine if Mark Twain and Grantland Rice drank rye by a bonfire all night and attempted to come up with an American folk hero for the modern sports era. 

They could conjure up a backcountry, bull-wrangling giant capable of winning the World Series on his own, and they would still only have a fraction of the character that is Madison Bumgarner. 

I say this with confidence due to a feature profile published by Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci Tuesday, which—to put it lightly—revealed to readers the tall tale that is Bumgarner‘s life story. 

Verducci lists a number of unbelievable, but reportedly true, stories about the San Francisco Giants pitcher, ranging from wild rabbit saving to dating a woman also named “Madison Bumgarner.” We’ll start with the rabbit, which Verducci writes Bumgarner saved from the belly of a snake he killed.

This may be the best Boone-like tale about the man they call Mad Bum. One day during spring training this year in Scottsdale, Bumgarner and his wife were roping cattle when Madison was startled by a large snake he figured was a rattler. He quickly grabbed an ax and hacked it to pieces. When Ali, an expert field dresser, examined what was left of the snake, she found two baby jackrabbits inside pieces of it and extracted them. A short while later the Bumgarners noticed that one of the rabbits had moved slightly. It was alive. Ali brought the rabbit back to their apartment and for the next few days kept it warm and bottle-nursed it. The rabbit soon was healthy enough for them to release in to the wild.

Bumgarner affirmed this to Verducci.

“Think about how tough that rabbit was,” Bumgarner said. “First it gets eaten by a snake, then the snake gets chopped to pieces, then it gets picked up by people and it lives. It’s all true.” 

As for the other Madison Bumgarner, it’s as weird and simple as it sounds. Bumgarner claimed that prior to marrying his wife Ali, he dated a woman also named “Madison Bumgarner.”

“No relation,” Bumgarner told Verducci. “I’m sure of it.”

If that doesn’t do it for you, Verducci writes of the routine a homesick Bumgarner established in 2007 while playing for the Giants’ Instructional League team in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

Bumgarner would pass the downtime by walking from his room at a Days Inn to the Scottsdale Fashion Square mall. But he didn’t go inside. In a courtyard there was a statue of a bull. Bumgarner would bring a lasso and practice his roping against the inanimate animal, pretending he was home.

So we’re clear, Bumgarner honed his cow-roping skills on a fake bull outside a mall. Again, this is not a character in a Norman Mailer book.

Verducci’s story goes on to tell of Bumgarner’s first real suit (purchased this year), his days of playing coach-pitch with kids nearly double his age and his father-in-law’s one-eyed dog. It’s a great read for fiction lovers, and an even better one for baseball fans who want to know the full, surreal story of the man who practically won the Giants the 2014 World Series single-handedly.

Just try not to forget this is a real person. It’s difficult at times.

Follow Dan on Twitter for more sports and pop culture filigree.

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Keep it right here for all the live updates of the much-anticipated Giants vs. Cardinals Game 1 NLCS matchup. Who will draw first blood? We’ll be the first to let you know!

SCORE Update: Giants 3 – 0 Cardinals, Bottom 9th

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