• President Ben Shibe and manager Connie Mack were off to Buffalo to attend American League meetings

• While there Mack planned to suggest a rule allowing a team to substitute another hitter for the pitcher in the batting lineup – a designated hitter, if you will

• His argument was two-fold: first, that most pitchers were bad hitters and, second, that games were unnecessarily delayed while a pitcher recovered his wind between innings after having exerted himself on the basepaths in the previous half-inning