Mark Blomberg, baseball’s first designated hitter, grew up in Atlanta where hearing anti-Semitic slurs was a way of his young live.

Blomberg’s childhood dream of playing for the New York Yankees and in front of the Bronx’s large Jewish population came true when the Yankees made Blomberg its’ first free agent choice in 1967. Said Blomberg, “To be able to play in front of eight million Jews! Can’t beat it. I lit everyone’s candles for every bar mitzvah in the city.”

No fault of Blomberg’s the designated hitter ruined baseball’s reputation as the thinking man’s game. It relegated one of baseball’s biggest appeals – second guessing the manager and his roster moves, the old Hot Stove League pastime – to the dustbin.

The idea of a designated hitter was first raised by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack in 1906. Mack saw its value, not necessarily as an option to generate offense but to save wear and tear on his pitcher’s legs. Owners rebuffed Mack’s concept as too radical. Prominent pitchers also rejected the idea of giving up hitting. In a 1918 article in Baseball Magazine, Babe Ruth said “the pitcher who can’t get in there in the pinch and win his own game with a healthy wallop, isn’t more than half earning his salary in my way of thinking.”

American League owners foolishly added the designated hitter in 1973, causing some silliness in the baseball world. During the World Series, games played in the American League used to use a designated hitter, while games in the National League did not. The annual All-Star Game also juggled designated hitters depending on which league hosted the game. Commissioner Rob Manfred, who never met a rule change he didn’t embrace, ended all that and announced a universal designated hitter rule would begin with the 2022 season. The rule was ratified as part of a new collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

By 1973, Blomberg had a new role as Yankees’ designated hitter. Unsure exactly what that involved, Manager Ralph Houk explained to him, “You get up to bat, you take your four swings, you drive in runs, you come back to the bench, and you keep loose in the runway. You’re basically pinch-hitting for the pitcher four times in the same game.”

Injuries cut Blomberg’s Yankees’ time short. While his stats are not up to Hall of Fame standards, his first designated hitter bat and the uniform he wore that historic day are on display.

In retirement, Blomberg stays close to baseball. He runs the Ron Blomberg Baseball camp and is one of the most popular instructors at the Yankees fantasy camp. He does some high school and college scouting for the Yankees from his suburban Atlanta home. In 2007, Blomberg managed the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox of the first ever Israel Baseball League. In 2008, Blomberg and author Dan Schlossberg wrote his autobiography, Designated Hebrew.

Blomberg, 77, is in high demand as a motivational speaker, telling his story of perseverance and his successes. “Boomer,” as his Yankee teammates called him, works with the Israel Cancer Research fund where he serves as honorary chairman. He resides in Roswell, Georgia where, by all accounts, he’s a great guy and generous to all.

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Copyright 2025 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].