C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

As for the rumors of the designated hitter coming soon to the National League, Reds COO Bob Castellini offered a one-word comment Thursday — “No.”

Like everyone else in baseball, Castellini heard the remarks of Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak earlier this month that there was “more momentum” for the DH to come to the National League. Mozeliak’s comments plus the upcoming expiration of Major League Baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with the MLB Players’ Association set baseball Twitter and blogs into overreaction mode, forecasting the DH for as soon as 2017.

That’s not happening, and if Castellini has a say — and he does — it won’t ever happen.

“All that is blown out of proportion,” Castellini said before at the kickoff of the Reds Caravan on Thursday morning. “There’s no groundswell for it. The commissioner had a press interview after our owners’ meeting and he was taken out of context.”

Last week at the Owners’ Meetings in Coral Gables, Florida, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said teams were more open to change than in the past.

“Twenty years ago, when you talked to National League owners about the DH, you’d think you were talking some sort of heretical comment,” Manfred told reporters. “But we have a newer group. There has been turnover, and I think our owners in general have demonstrated a willingness to change the game in ways that we think would be good for the fans, always respecting the history and traditions of the sport.”

At no time during those meetings did the idea of the designated hitter coming to the National League come up, Manfred said at the time.

Since then — and the loud response the possibility of change has elicited — Manfred has said he was speaking only in hypotheticals and didn’t mean to suggest the DH to the NL was on the table.

“I swear to God, I never said anything in the press conference that was in support of the DH,” Manfred told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci earlier this week in response to the headlines. Manfred then reiterated that the owners didn’t even talk about the expansion of the DH rule, which has been in the American League since 1973.

Castellini said he wouldn’t speak for any of the other owners, but he is solidly against any movement toward a universal designated hitter.

“Our fans are used to the wonderful baseball that’s been played here for nearly 150 years, and we don’t plan to have any kind of campaign to change it,” Castellini said.