We need to define exactly what “baseball” is. Do pitchers need to bat or don’t they? One way or the other. Having two sets of rules makes as much sense as…nothing. There are no circumstances in which having two sets of rules for a single sport makes any sense.
Imagine a world in which hockey games in the Eastern Conference get six skaters plus a goalie–except when they’re playing a Western Conference team on the road in which they would revert back to the “traditional” five skaters plus a goalie. It would create chaos–just as it’s done in baseball (although in more subtle ways). The game has changed in a fundamental way–perhaps for the better, I don’t know. But there should be ONE set of standards for the game.
Having become only a sporadic watcher of baseball, the oddity of this situation has grown the less I watch.
Major League Baseball needs to change it. One way or the other.
The Local Paper 