Talk:Mark Belanger
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I'd like to slightly re-arrange this article to talk about Belanger's fielding first, and then get into a discussion of his weak offensive skills. That would segue into something I learned about Belanger (I think I found it somewhere online), that because of Belanger, and Earl Weaver's cleverness, a rule in baseball was created, in essence, just for Belanger.
The baseball rule is this: If a player bats, he must play one full inning (i.e. must play in the field). Because Belanger was a weak hitter, and usually batted ninth after the DH-rule was created, Weaver figured out that when on the road, he could have (in effect) a pinch-hitter lead off the game, then substitute Belanger in for defense in the bottom half of the inning. So a new rule was created just to thwart this particular bit of strategery. So in effect, it could be thought of as the Belanger/Weaver rule.
Perhaps I learned of this from my uncle, former O's reliever Dick Hall, who was a teammate of Belanger's for several years. --Mmpartee 13:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that's not a rule, however. LaRussa did the same thing in reverse in the late '90s--write in Mark McGwire at SS or 2B or wherever, have him bat in the first inning, then replace him with a fielder in the bottom of the inning.
What Weaver did that led to a rule change was in the first year of the DH, writing in the previous day's starting pitcher as the starting DH for each game. Then, in the event that a pitching change took place before the DH's spot came up for the first time, he could send up someone to match up with him without losing a bench player. MLB decided that this messed up their pinch-hitting statistics (since the starting DH was technically being PH for 162 times) and passed a rule that the starting DH must bat once, unless there's a pitching change. PeteF3 15:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
