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	Fans in NL cities should see Edgar Martinez as a DH, not just a PH.

So there we were Tuesday in Philadelphia, in the dugout of the Seattle Mariners, when a pesky little Interleague Play Crisis reared its pesky head, with almost no warning.

Seattle manager Bob Melvin was telling the story of how he was writing out his lineup that afternoon for the first interleague road game of the year. Then he arrived at the No. 4 spot in his batting order, the spot where he's pre-programmed to write out the name, "Edgar Martinez," every night of the week.

His hand "kept wanting to write Edgar's name in there," Melvin said. But his brain told him his favorite powers that be probably wouldn't go for that, because the schedule makers had sent him to a National League park. Which meant, alas, he was now sitting in the No-DH-ing section of baseball's dining room.

The rules are the rules, of course. There's no fighting them. There's no changing them. And we can all admit there's a certain logic to the interleague rule that goes: NL rules in NL parks, AL rules in AL parks.

But it's time to make a very important point: Just because it's logical doesn't mean it's sensible.

After all, if you live in a National League city, the Seattle Mariners aren't going to visit your town much more often than Halley's Comet. So suppose you want to take your kids out to see the great Edgar Martinez play. Is it really sensible to have to tell them: "OK, try real hard to stay awake, little Johnny, because Edgar will be pinch-hitting in a couple of hours?"

Heck, no. That isn't sensible. It's deplorable. If you had one shot every six years or so to see the Mariners come to your town, wouldn't you want to see Edgar play?

"Yeah," Martinez chuckled Tuesday night. "I would."

But even though Martinez is clearly the best DH alive, and even though his absence -- in the words of Seattle center fielder Mike Cameron -- "just about blows our whole team up," this doesn't have to be just about him.

Cork Dept. Rumblings

It's been tough to find people in baseball, at least early on, who believe that Sammy Sosa didn't know what bat he was using when he picked that cork stick out of the bat rack Tuesday night. But if it turns out that the rest of Sosa's bats are cork-free, at least that would lessen the suspicion that Sosa was cheating when he hit all those 505 home runs. How many bats are broken these days in every game? How many bats break in an inning when a Mariano Rivera or John Smoltz is out there? So if Sosa had been using a corked bat repeatedly for the last five years, or eight years, or 10 years, wouldn't someone have caught him long before this? "Sammy knows how common it is for bats to break," said one Sosa sympathizer. "He also knows that bats that have been `worked on' are more prone to exploding. Sammy is a lot of things. But he's not a stupid guy." That doesn't mean people ought to accept his alibi for this incident without a raised eyebrow. But unlike Albert Belle -- who had a teammate crawl through the ceiling to steal the evidence -- or Wilton Guerrero -- who scrambled around trying to retrieve his cork before the proper authorities did -- at least Sosa's first act was to admit he'd done what he'd done and apologize. Unlike Belle, who denied everything even after being caught, Sosa seems to understand he needs to accept at least some responsibility. In fact, there has already been some speculation that if his suspension is in line with previous bat-tampering suspensions -- i.e., about a week -- he might not even appeal. But of course, once people get beyond the question, "Did Sammy cheat?" the next question is: "Is everybody cheating?" Well, we'd bet that a half-dozen bats break every day in the average major-league game. And no one has been caught corking in seven years. So that tells you the percentage of corkers and cheaters is lower than some people think. But when Dusty Baker tried to claim Tuesday he'd never heard of anybody corking in all his years in baseball, it ought to qualify him for a spot in the next troupe down at Second City. Former Indians have suggested in recent years that they actually had a wood shop at the old Cleveland Stadium in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And who doesn't know that cheating by pitchers and hitters is a more time-honored baseball tradition than the seventh-inning stretch? One player told us recently that bat-corking technology has improved so much in recent years that the holes being bored in the wood can now be as small as 1/16 or 1/8 of an inch -- and still help improve bat speed. And the smaller the holes, the less likely the bat is to break. But the fact is, not even players themselves know how much cheating is taking place. "How much that goes on, I don't know, and I don't want to know," said 20-year-veteran reliever Dan Plesac. "I used to look at Mark McGwire, and there was no doubt in my mind his forearms were corked."

"Let's say one year that Barry Bonds can't play a position anymore and he has to go and play in the American League," Martinez theorized. "And say he's going for a big record, like the (Hank Aaron) home run record. And now it's interleague play and they go to a National League park and he can't play. I don't think that's good. I think fans want to see players like that play."

We can argue for two weeks about interleague play, about the DH rule, about which league's rules are better. But forget that for a second. Let's ponder that last sentiment: Fans want to see great players play.

What we have now is an interleague system that's designed to keep an Edgar Martinez from playing -- in front of fans who probably have never seen him and are probably never going to see him. Unless ...

Unless, that is, baseball turns immediately to the Rumblings Crisis Intervention Center, because we can solve this problem with a two-word proposal:

DH Night. (Or its four-word promotional variation, DH And Dog Night, in which fans would get to see Edgar and get a free hot dog out of it.)

Here's the deal: When an American League team visits a National League city during interleague play, one game out of every series ought to be DH Night.

The game would be played with AL rules. The DHs all get to play. And fans get more than a chance to see the Edgar Martinezes and Rafael Palmeiros do what they do. They get a real, up-close-and-personal experience with a whole style of play they have argued about for years but never actually gotten to see.

Then, when the NL teams go to the AL cities, we reverse it: One game in every series is Pitchers Get to Hit Night.

Let those AL fans see for themselves that Mark Prior is probably a better hitter than their starting catcher. Let them see that watching the inimitable hacks of an Al Leiter can represent quality entertainment. Let them experience the double switch and the strategic intricacies of the NL game for a change.

We ask you: Is this brilliant or what?

This idea first started hatching inside Rumblings Headquarters over the winter when Padres GM Kevin Towers suggested to us that all interleague games in NL cities should be played with AL rules, and vice-versa. We're not ready for that yet. But one night a series? It accomplishes the same goal, and it creates one extra interesting night in every series. So Towers says he'd take it.

"I always thought the whole idea of the new stuff we're doing -- the wild card, expanded playoffs, interleague play -- was to create more excitement in the game," Towers said. "So why not try something different? We've already started tinkering with interleague. We started out playing just against one division. Now we're rotating divisions. So now let's do one more thing different."

We wouldn't say we did a national Gallup Poll on this brainstorm this week. But let's just say that in the Mariners' clubhouse, it was a major hit.

"Yeah, man, that's cool," said Cameron. "I like that."

"I want every day to be DH Day," said Bret Boone. "I like it when Edgar is in there with me. But I'll take it."

"If I were running baseball, I'd go for it," said Melvin. "Try to lobby for that right now. I'll hold my lineup."

OK, OK. We're lobbying. We're lobbying. But the big test, we figured, was Martinez himself. He's not too happy about basically joining the witness-protection program for a week. So we weren't sure if one game a series would be enough for him.

"That," he gushed, "is the best idea I've ever heard on this situation. I like it."

He didn't even just like it for selfish reasons, too. He saw the big picture.

"I'm sure the fans in the National League want to see how the American League plays the game," he said. "So that's a great opportunity for fans who want to see a certain player or a different type of game. That way, they can see it one night a series."

Precisely. Towers says the flip-flop-the-rules proposal has come up at general managers' meetings but never went beyond that. Well, it has now. And even Martinez figures it's just a matter of time before an idea this sensational goes from the Rumblings desk to the rule book.

"This is how EVERYTHING starts," Martinez said. "You make a story about it. Then people say, `Hey, that's a good idea.' Next thing you know ..."

Yeah, next thing you know, it disappears into cyberspace, never to be heard of again -- until Bud Selig takes credit for it. But when that happens, just remember where you first read it, where you first heard it and what 1-800 number you ought to call the next time an official Baseball Crisis visits a ballpark near you.

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